LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



¥p- 




n, 



Shelf A^^- 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



NEW Kingdom, 



A TREATISE ON 



Ttte Fftbb OF MftN 



AND THE 



IDeNTITT OF THe SeRPGNT. 

The extent gf the flo0d 



AND 



Ttte FROBftBte eND OFTIMe, 



BV H. F=. SnTESTL-KKB. 



ST. LOUIS, MO. ?i. -^ 

Wbstlake-Smith Eng. Co., Publishers, =*"«*.. 



1892. 



>i 3 ^i4 X 



SS52>o 



COPYRIGHTED BV 

H. P. WESTLAKE, 
1892* 



PREFACE. 

When this book was commenced there was 
existing in some of the periodicals a hvely contro- 
versy regarding the utterances of a rather noted 
infidel. These writings were designed as a few 
short contributions on the same subject. 

But on beginning and proceeding for a time, 
it seemed to expand and grow into such vast pro- 
portions, and to become of such vital importance, 
as to require a more extended and careful consider- 
ation. Hence the production of this volume. 

Only a few things of the infinite many, have 
been touched upon at all, and they in the briefest 
manner possible. 

The chief object has been to give conclusions 
and deductions, rather than to go into a laborious 
proof of their correctness. 

That the reader should be induced to free him- 
self from the bias of dogmas, from the incubus of 
traditions, and with untrammeled, unprejudiced 
mind to seek for the very truth itself, is all that is 
aimed at by 

THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I. SECTARIAN INFLUENCE INJURIOUS. - - - i 

II. WHAT IS REQUIRED IN SEARCHING THE SCRIPT- 
URES. --..-- 8 

III. FALL OF SATAN AND DESTRUCTION OF HIS KING- 

DOM. 17 

IV. RESTORATION OF THE EARTH FOR MAN'S HABI- 

TATION. - - - ... 25 

V. CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. - - - 36 
VI. THE NATURE OF THE FALL AND IDENTITY OF 

THE SERPENT. 46 

VII. THE FLOOD AND ITS EXTENT. - . - - 60 

VIII. FROM THE FLOOD TO MOSES. - . - 70 

IX. EXODUS OF THE JEWS FROM EGYPT. - . - 79 

X. THE JEWS IN THE WILDERNESS AND IN CANAAN. 96 

XI. THE DESIGNS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNALTERABLE 

AND MERCIFUL. ----- no 

XII. THE ADVENT OF JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 122 

XIII. HIS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. - 134 

XIV. HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. - 145 

XV. THE ANTICHRIST: THE JUDGMENT; THE NEW 

KINGDOM. ------ 157 



SECTARIAN INFLUENCE INJURIOUS. 



CHAPTER I. 

SECTARIAN INFLUENCE INJURIOUS. 

This appears to be a time of general 
inquiry into the truths of Christianity, and 
the justification for the numerous branchesc 
that are attached to the parent stem. 

It is a matter of regret that an infidel, one 
who believes in nothing spiritual, nothing in 
the Book of books, who derides and scorns 
that which has stood the test of centuries 
and been the beacon and the guiding star of 
millions of earth's good and great, should be 
the inciting cause to this lively interest. 

We must admit that it is natural to 
h'^manity to defend from attack that which 
it holds as not only true but sacred. But 
repelling assaults or even persecution, is not 
consistent with the teaching of Christianity. 
Meekness, submission, endurance widiout 
resistance, are its chief tenets. 

And yet at the first blast from the 



2 SECTARIAN INFLUENCE INJURIOUS. 

challenging trumpet of this really harmless 
being, the ministers of a peaceful Prince put 
on their armor and are ready to meet or to 
force the deadly conflict, that they must feel 
can result in no good to man, nor in honor 
to God. 

They know that the bright intellect is 
prostituted for money; they know that a 
mind so clear and strong of comprehension 
as his, so vivid in imagery, so keen in the 
sharp thrusts of irony cannot possibly be a 
dullard to the inspired teachings of the Bible; 
cannot be blind and irresponsive to the 
supreme grandeur of creation. 

How can they meet the attack of ridicule ? 
How can they dull or turn aside the point of 
sarcasm? How rebut and neutralize the 
meaningless ranting of the unbeliever? 
Surely not by contending with his own 
weapons. And why use arguments when 
nothing is opposing? Why desecrate the 
good and the beautiful by placing them in 
reach of the tongue that touches only to 
pollute, whose feet would tramp pearls in 
the mire. 



SECTARIAN INFLUENCE INJURIOUS. 3 

*'To fight the devil with fire" sounds 
logical, but it is a proverb that has age with- 
out wisdom. 

Strife encourages strife; contention be- 
gets stubbornness, often anger, and not 
infrequently crystalizes doubt into confirmed 
unbelief. 

What then is the method that would 
probably prove most productive of good ? 
Naturally but two ways remain; give the 
reason of your own belief in the clearest, 
most convincing, yet briefest possible man- 
ner; and the other, live your belief; let your 
light shine that all may see; have charity to 
man, a clean life, reverence for everything 
pure, and a reaching upward to the source 
of all purity. 

These two should constitute the only 
weapons of warfare with infidelity; and even 
they might never convince a single infidel. 
But- should they not, they could not fail at 
least to be of vast advantage to others, and, 
which is of much more importance, sacred 
things would not be desecrated. 

It cannot be denied by the most zealous 



4 SECTARIAN INFLUENCE INJURIOUS. 

believers that there are ample grounds for 
adverse criticism, not of the Christian doc- 
trine itself, but of the almost numberless 
sects and schisms that exist throughout the 
world; all founded on the same Rock, all 
drawing their articles of faith from the same 
unalterable book of truth, yet diametrically 
opposite on vital points, contending and 
clashing one with another, and condemning 
to perdition with the hearty earnestness of 
the evil one himself. 

What a sharp weapon of attack is put in 
the hands of the skilled antagonist by the 
unrelenting contest over baptism, the Euch- 
arist, purgatory, predestination, eternal pun- 
ishment, and even reaching down to the 
minor points of church decorum. 

The infidel can reasonably ask why 
should there exist such grave doubts on 
these points where one would expect the 
clearest light ? Why is there any obscurity 
as to the proper method of administering the 
rite of baptism, and of partaking of the Lord's 
supper? 

Why should one have a choice as to free 



SECTARIAN INFLUENCE INJURIOUS. f> 

will or predestination? Is only one way 
right? And if only one, which is the one? 
And why does not our Bible clearly settle 
these several points of endless and bitter con- 
tests between the different Christian sects ? 

There is one other and most effective 
weapon of infidelity, effective, because be- 
lieved in by nearly all Christians, and that is 
the doctrine that a merciful Being elects a few 
to bliss, and condemns the unnumbered 
legions to endless torments; a Being that not 
only created, but that foreknew all things 
from the becrinnino-. 

Taking into consideration all the points 
of weakness in the armor of the modern 
churchmen, it is not surprising that the attacks 
of enemies are frequent and bold, while the 
defence can not be otherwise than weak, 
rambling and spiritless. 

As an expounder of views that will 
doubtless seem wild, and, it may be, without 
warrant of authority from any source, I know 
that I tread on untried, dangerous ground. 

But I pray patience and serious reflec- 
tion. 



6 SECTARIAN INFLUENCE INJURIOUS. 

There is a spirit of unrest in the land. 
Many ministers of high repute, churchmen of 
national renown, are disavowing- the creeds 
of their churches, creeds that they have clung 
to through years and years of prayer and 
preaching, and now are apparently wander- 
ing aimless, guideless in a wilderness of 
doubt. 

It is too evidently true that the creeds of 
the different churches are based on a more 
or less forced interpretation of the Scriptures; 
forced, inasmuch as they do not perfectly 
harmonize with all the Scriptures as an 
entirety. 

Each sect, having established its faith on 
some particular doctrinal point, immediately 
expounds the Bible as agreeing perfectly 
therewith. The Lutheran and the Calvinist 
draw their antagonizing creeds from the same 
teacher. The believer in a burning hell as 
well as the believer in universal redemption, 
brings the Bible in as clearly authorizing his 
creed. 

Is there not something radically wrong 
in the common method of Scripture study? 



SECTARIAN INFLUENCE INJURIOUS. 7 

Or is it because of having been reared from 
childhood within the influence of these sec- 
tarian differences, the mind never gets 
beyond using them as a gauge in scriptural 
interpretation ? 

This is a grave error. We should investi- 
gate and seek after the truth for the truth's 
sake alone, and without desiring or trying in 
the least to find support for any particular 
bias or belief. Such an investigation is not 
only possible, but it is the only kind that can 
ever result in the solution of these disputed 
points. 

There surely can be some exposition of 
the providence of God toward man that is 
consistent with all parts of his revealed word; 
an exposition that would, we feel assured, 
not only dispel all doubts, all disputes and 
bickerings, but would fill us with awe and 
wonder at the grandeur of the great plan 
whose conception was before tin^e began, 
its consummation when time ends. 



METHOD OF SCRIPTURE STUDY. 



CHAPTER 11. 

WHAT IS REQUIRED IN SEARCHING THE SCRIPT- 
URES. 

We accept the Bible as the book of God; 
a book that, although It has been in the hands 
of man for nearly twenty centuries, is sub- 
stantially true in all its parts; a book that 
reveals the works of His creation, and the 
laws that he requires us to observe; gives the 
account of man's fall and his continuous dis- 
obedience, the penalties so often inflicted, and 
the plan of his final redemption ; the rise and 
fall of mighty nations of antiquity; and in 
general, a concise statement of the most 
important events in the world's history down 
to the coming of the Savior. A period that 
would otherwise have remained in almost 
impenetrable obscurity. 

It is worthy of continued remembrance 
that from the beginning to the end of this 
sacred volume, there is one thing impera- 



METHOD OF SCRIPTURE STUDY. 9 

tively demanded of mankind; one require- 
ment standing pre-eminent to all others, and 
that is, entire belief in its statements, a cre- 
dence* unlimited, a trust unclouded with a 
doubt. Adam doubted God's word and fell: 
the antediluvians had no faith in the oft given 
warnings, and the flood came; the Jews in 
the wilderness, and afterwards, endured the 
penalties of unbelief. 

On the other hand, most signal blessing 
always attended faith. Abraham was blessed 
beyond all the children of men, not only in 
worldly wealth, but in promises for the future 
that did not fail. 

When the Son came, faith in his word, 
the simple belief that he was the Son of God, 
wrought miracles, healed the sick, even raised 
the dead to life again. 

It is the Christian's present strength and 
his hope for the future. It is the one chief 
and only support of the church of Christ, as 
without it there is no Christianity. 

In order therefore to study the Scriptures 
in a proper manner, we must do so in a faith 
that is as limitless as the power of God; 



10 METHOD OF SCRIPTURE STUDY. 

doubting nothing, whether it is understood by 
us, or not understood; never for a moment 
questioning the word of that Being who rules 
the universe, and who is infinite in all his 
attributes. 

We are not required to believe that the 
Bible is a book inspired in all its parts. A 
large portion of the Old Testament is devoted 
to a history of the Jewish nation, of its vari- 
ous rulers, and of its many bloody, devastat- 
ing wars with other nations. We can judge 
of the accuracy of these by reflecting upon 
the eminence and reputed truthfulness of the 
different authors or compilers, the care with 
which their writings were kept and handed 
down to succeeding generations, and the 
invariableness of their verification by con- 
temporaneous histories whenever the same 
events were recorded. 

It may be also admitted that owing to its 
numerous translations into other languages 
errors have crept in, but none of a character 
to in the least change the sense, or in any 
way detract from its common repute of being 
strictly true. 



METHOD OF SCRIPTURE STUDY. 11 

The New Testament can safely be taken 
as inspired. That is to say, all of the writers, 
as is admitted by all Christians, were pos- 
sessed of the Holy Ghost, as was promised 
them by the Savior; and we need have no 
fear that any statement made by them, any 
revelation of spiritual import, any doctrinal 
points stated, or rules of life prescribed, was 
not given under divine direction and binding 
upon all. 

We should also bear in mind that no 
more is ever stated than the case required. 

There are no reasons given, no minute 
details of events are recorded, but only the 
abrupt, positive assertion of facts, or pro- 
claiming of laws, that are and of necessity 
must be true and binding without proof. 

It will be worse than profitless to investi- 
gate the Bible records while possessed of an 
inclination to doubt, a disposition to quibble 
and criticize. 

It tells us that the world and all that 
therein is, and the sun, and the moon, and 
stars, were all created in six days. 

Researches in the fossiliferous rocks of 



12 METHOD OF SCRIPTURE STUDY. 

the earth demonstrate the fact that it was In 
a process of construction for unnumbered 
cycles. As the word and the works of God 
cannot disagree, we conclude at once that by 
six days was not meant six revolutions of the 
earth, but six vast periods of millions of years 
each, during which he was preparing the 
earth for man's occupancy. 

Although the fossils, like a book with 
only a torn leaf here and there remaining, 
bear evidence of an order in creation some- 
what similar to that given in the Bible; still 
no explanation is needed where the six days 
are evidently meant as typical. The Lord 
had divided his work of preparing man's 
future home into six periods; he required 
man to forever commemorate it by resting 
on the seventh of his days. 

The account of the fall of man is^iven 
with equal terseness; but what would avail 
anything more elaborate ? It was sufficient 
to narrate the circumstances that have 
especial bearing on and lead up to the great 
catastrophe — the existence of the tree, the 
command against eating its fruit, the viola- 



METHOD OF SCRIPTURE STUDY. 13 

tion of the command and the penalty im- 
posed. 

The same brevity of narration, the same 
meagreness of detail, is ever found in the 
Bible. No more is said than is necessary to im- 
press the meaning with sufficient emphasis. 

We can rest in the assurance that whatever 
is obscure and mysterious is either designed 
to be so, or the fault lies with us; that what- 
ever seems contradictory is only so in seem- 
ing, as there can be no contradiction. 

The Bible was given us as a teacher and 
a guide, and inculcates no errors. 

As we have all the riches of its contents 
open before us, the narration of events from 
before the creation to the coming of Christ, 
as well as the prophecies reaching forward to 
the end of the world, it would seem eminently 
consistent with the intelligence and the rea- 
soning powers we possess, and with the 
spirit of inquiry with which we are endowed, 
to read and meditate on the grand revelations 
of both the Bible and nature, and to reflect, 
compare, and construct from the evidence 
before us. , 



14 METHOD OF SCRIPTURE STUDY. 

How profoundly moved we are when we 
look backward through and beyond the dim 
past; forward to the bright realms of assured 
eternity ; down at the dark recesses of earth ; 
its rivers of poured out blood; its crimes and 
oppressions; its mocking of all that is good; 
its blasphemies and corruptions that, from 
the creation of man, have befouled the pure 
air of heaven. 

Then we turn upward the reflective gaze 
to the sun and its planets, and to the shining 
worlds beyond; those far-away, gleaming, 
sparkling gems of light, those mere points of 
scintillating brilliancy, millions on millions in 
number and billions of miles away, which we 
know are in reality gigantic, glowing suns, 
the central ruling powers of encircling plan- 
etary systems. 

We see and are filled with awe. All 
things in nature are incomprehensible in 
magnitude, unerring in operation, whether it 
be in creating and controlling systems of 
worlds, or in bringing up from the mould of 
the earth the beautiful, fragrant little flower. 

All show attributes beyond our compre- 



METHOD OF SCRIPTURE STUDY. 15 

hension, infinite in all things, in wisdom and 
power, and in beauty and magnitude of de- 
sign as in perfection of execution . Seeing 
only infinite wisdom in all things else, can 
we for a moment suppose that there was not 
design, a fixed purpose in creating the earth, 
and in placing innocent, weak man in the 
garden of Eden, and subjecting him to a dual 
temptation? We cannot doubt there was. 
What that design was and is we can only 
know in the great hereafter. But we can 
be quite certain of one thing, yea, of two — 
when the great work is finished there will be 
legions more of angels to glorify God, and 
not one additional sufferer of eternal torment. 

We cannot reconcile eternal punishment 
with infinite mercy. There is not the least 
doubt that the plan of salvation as adopted, 
was the one that perfectly secured the 
Divine aim, and at the same time was in 
strict accord with his mercy. 

Before enlarging upon the subject of 
man's relation to God in his creation, and in 
his present and future state, we will proceed 
to a consideration of the word and works of 



16 METHOD OF SCRIPTURE STUDY. 

God, as impressing us with the conviction 
that there is, and has been from the begin- 
ning, some grand scheme of heaven's great 
King, of which our existence forms but a 
part, and that our creation, with all the sub- 
sequent incidents of the temptation and 
death penalty, the coming of the Savior and 
restoration to life, are only portions of this 
foreordained, unalterable design that will end 
with time in a grand consummation. 

The revelations on this subject are abund- 
ant, and in some respects most clear, in others 
obscure. Still there is enough to form con- 
clusions that seem not only warranted by the 
Bible but are consistent with the divine 
attributes. 



FALL OF SATAN. 17 



CHAPTER III. 

FALL OF SATAN AND DESTRUCTION OF HIS KING- 
DOM. 

The Devil and his angels were once ser- 
vants of the Most High ; angels of light, 
and obedient to His will. 

We cannot comprehend the possibility of 
their desiring to rebel, believing, as we do, 
in the perfect purity of the angel nature ; and 
still less can we understand how they could, 
in the least degree, expect to war success- 
fully against infinite power. Though the 
Bible, from beginning to end, abounds in 
angel history, we know nothing of their real 
appearance, their individuality, as they are 
spirits, invisible and indescribable to us. 

We only know that there are two kinds, 
good and bad ; the former, as the ministers 
of God, doing His will in heaven and on 
earth; with the power to annihilate, and the 
power to create even great worlds, and swing 



18 FALL OF SATAN. 

them forth on their orbits in ilHmitable 
space ; the latter to do evil continually, and 
strive to undo the works of the e^ood. We 
infer that there are degrees of angel power 
and authority. Gabriel stands continuously 
before God. Michael and his hosts had 
charge of the Hebrews. There was a Prince 
for Persia, one for Grecia, and probably one 
for each of the other kingdoms of the world; 
and with each prince there were no doubt 
hosts of assistant angels, each doing his 
share of the work assigned. Against these 
were evil angels opposed. An angel told 
Daniel that he had been delayed in Persia 
for one and twenty days in a struggle with 
the evil prince of that nation, but Michael, 
one of the chief princes, coming to his as- 
sistance, they succeeded in subduing the 
evil prince ; that the Prince of Grecia would 
come on his leaving, as he had to return and 
again fight the prince of Persia ; that he had 
assisted Darius, the Mede, during the first 
year of his reign ; and the things he was 
about to tell Daniel were known only to 
himself and Michael. 



FALL OF SATAN. 19 

We have not the least reason to suppose 
that there is another world in the universe 
like ours ; a world in a state of transition 
from mortality to immortality ; a w^orld reek- 
ing in crime, groaning under the ills of the 
flesh, seething and bubbling in corruption; 
and where the angels of heaven and hell are 
fighting their great battles over the souls of 
the elect of God. We know of but one sin- 
ful world ; we know of only one rebellion in 
heaven. We conclude, therefore, with cer- 
tainty that all the rest of God's creation is 
pure and undefiled ; that all those bright 
orbs that nightly illume the sky, reaching be- 
yond our system into the dark, etherial blue 
of fathomless space, are the heavenly abodes 
of angels, and archangels, and spirits of God, 
that know not sin. 

Is it not then more than probable that at 
some past time our planetary system was a 
heavenly kingdom, even the kingdom of 
Satan himself ? 

The Scriptures indicate this, and on its 
admission as a fact, the providence of God 
tov/ards man, in his creation, and in his uiti- 



20 FALL OF SATAN. 

mate redemption and location on earth, ap- 
peals to our intelligence as most grand and 
God-like in all its parts. 

Satan, in the zenith of his glory, was a 
mighty prince before the Lord, having do- 
minion over principalities and powers, and 
with legions of angels to do his will. 

His was the august imperialism to sit en- 
throned in gorgeous state on a vast globe 
of liquid radiancy, surrounded with his great 
armies of winged angels, who, obedient to 
his every command, sped, as the lightnings 
flash, with messages of greeting or com- 
mand, to the waiting hosts on Venus, or 
Earth, or away to Saturn, or Jupiter, or 
further Neptune -— those worlds of angelic 
abode, moving, with silent grandeur, round 
about the throne of their great prince. 

The human mind cannot conceive the 
immensity of power, nor the splendor of the 
realms, of these Chiefs of the hosts of the 
Lord. 

But with power eventually came pride,and 
with pride, ambition -— a vaulting ambition, 
that dared the power of heaven's great King. 



FALL OF SATAN. 21 

** And there appeared a wonder in 
heaven, and behold a great red dragon hav- 
ing seven heads and ten horns, and seven 
crowns upon his heads." 

" And his tail drew the third part of the 
stars of heaven and did cast them to the 
earth." 

** And there was war in heaven. Michael 
and his angels fought against the dragon, 
and the dragon fought and his angels, and 
prevailed not; neither was their place found 
any more in heaven." 

'* And the great dragon was cast out, that 
old Serpent called the Devil, and Satan, 
which deceiveth the whole world; he was 
cast out into the earth and his angels were 
cast out with him." "He was seen to fall as 
lightning from heaven." 

The rebellion seems to have spread be- 
yond Satan's own dominion, as he drew with 
him '* the third part of the stars of heaven.'* 

And how fearful was the defeat, as driven 
from heaven's ramparts by the thunder bolts 
of the great Jehovah, he was hurled back 
again to his own kingdom, broken, crushed, 



22 FALL OF SATAN. 

and held with the chains of Omnipotence. 

And in his fall he may have struck an 
intervening world and crushed it into the 
fragmentary orbs of Juno, Ceres and their 
scores of companion asteroids. 

Perhaps the just anger of God did not 
stop there, but the vials of his wrath were 
poured out on all of Satan's great domain. 

The sun, his seat of empire, may have 
trembled and rocked to its very center, and 
then burst forth into great mountain billow^s 
of seething flame, throwing out millions oi 
tongues of liquid fire, roaring, darting to and 
fro, for thousands upon thousands of miles ; 
and the earth, and the moon, and all the 
planets and their satellites, may have reeled 
to and fro under the fierce anger of God. 

And earthquakes came, with thunders 
and fearful roarings, until all barriers gave 
way, and each and every celestial world was 
deluged with seas of consuming fire, and all 
the fair mounts were melted down, and the 
lovely vales were pits of destruction. 

The flames of their burning for long ages 
ascended to heaven as the odor of incense. 



FALL OF SATAN. 23 

But a change came; the brightness that 
once filled all the firmament of heaven and 
made perpetual day grew less, and still less; 
the gloom of a long night drew near; the 
expurging fires are all out; the sun's sullen 
red gives no light, and the planets, now dark 
in their ruin, wrecked, and utterly devastated, 
swing for ages upon ages, through a rayless 
night — a night rayless and appalling — where 
no gleam from friendly star ever entered; 
where the awful silence was never broken by 
rustling wings, or if broken at all, 'twas by 
the moans and mutterlngs of the fallen 
angels, those shadows of evil, shorn of 
power and chained, except for a brief period, 
unto the day of Judgment and eternal con- 
demnation. 

There approaches now another epoch in 
the decreed plans of God, and the earth is 
taken as the theatre of action. Chaos still 
reigned. ''The earth was without form and 
void, and darkness was upon the face of the 
deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the 
face of the waters." 



24 FALL OF SATAN. 

'* And God said, 'Let there be light,' and 
there was light, " and time began. 

* * Let the waters be gathered together 
unto one place and let the dry land appear, 
and it was so." 

* ' Let the earth bring forth grass and 
trees bearing fruit." 

** Let the waters bring forth abundantly 
the moving creatures that have life, and 
fowls that may fly above the earth." 

*' Let the earth bring forth the living 
creature, cattle and creeping things, and 
beasts of the earth," *'and it was so, and all 
were good." 

But many millions of years had passed 
before all things were finished. 



RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. 25 



CHAPTER IV. 

RESTORATIOlSr OF THE EARTH FOR MAN's HAB- 
ITATION. 

A wrecked word was to be made a dwell- 
ing place suitable for the highest types of 
animal and vegetable life, and made, not by 
the uplifted hand of omnipotent power, but 
by agencies created for the especial pur- 
pose. 

The only land, were yet smoking moun- 
tains of granite, lava and scoriae ; the only 
water, steaming oceans like dead seas ; the 
only atmosphere, gases noxious as the breath 
of a furnace. 

But the ages passed, and the sun, and 
vapors, and beating waves, eroded and 
washed down the hard granite and the scor- 
iae, forming sloping shores and cozy nooks; 
and there was placed the first of the new 
creation, the sea moss. In appearance it 
differed little from the dead matter beside it. 



26 RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. 

But it possessed that which nothing else on 
the whole earth possessed— -life ; and, with 
life, the power to increase and multiply. 

There it lived, the first and lowest of ma- 
terial life ; lived and increased abundantly, 
nourished by water and air and mineral 
detritus. 

Then came others of the same family, 
confervae and fungi, all working together 
in laying the foundation for other and higher 
orders of vegetable life. 

Another kind of life was next created 
and placed with the primeval one, and that 
was the animal. The vegetable was required 
to sustain the animal, the latter having no 
power to assimilate matter that had not first 
been acted on by vegetable organization — 
this last acting as the connecting link 
between dead matter and spirit life. 

These two were the ag-ents that recon- 
structed the world ; the one on land, the 
other in the sea. 

Other ages passed, thousands of ages, 
and the great work continued. 

The smallest of animal workers, millions 



RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. 27 

of whom could gather in the shade of a single 
fungus, protozoans, polypes, foraminiferse, 

built great mountains of limestone, and even 
displaced the mighty ocean. 

On land the work performed was equally 
as grand. The world's combustion had left 
the air heavy with carbonic acid. Although 
the mountain and reef-builders had used it 
freely in making carbonate of lime,and a much 
greater quantity had been taken up by vegeta- 
tion, and stored away for future use, deep in 
the earth, in great beds of coal, enough was 
yet left for continuous service, for the world 
was covered with herbs and grasses and trees 
bearing fruit 

The animal kingdom had kept in a par- 
allel line of progress. 

The waters swarmed with living creatures ; 
and the dry land was covered, and the air 
filled, with species, families and orders of 
animated nature in never-ending variety. 

On reading the history of creation, as 
written in the rocks, we are filled with won- 
der, not only at the immensity of time it un- 
doubtedly covers, but at the thousands of 



28 RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. 

most wonderful objects it discloses. Every- 
thing created in those far-away times, from 
the very smallest to the most gigantic, was 
perfect, and often exquisitely beautiful. 

The animal kingdom is generally divided 
into four grand divisions — - the mollusks, ra- 
diates, articulates and vertebrates. These 
divisions only embrace the higher orders of 
animal life, as there are thousands of species 
too minute for investigation, and go under 
some general classification, as protozoans, 
infusoria, insectivera, baccili and the like. 

The first three of the four grand divis- 
ions furnish by far the most sub-divisions of 
orders, families and species, each distinctively 
different from all the others ; but it is only 
to the last division, the vertebrates, that all 
the higher types of animals belong. Fishes, 
reptiles, mammals and birds are but modifi- 
cations of one chief design — - an internal 
bony structure, with vertebrates entire or in 
part, and with processes for locomotion, 
changed in all the ways necessary to exactly 
suit the location and the wants of each ani- 
mal. 



RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. 29 

The fins of the fish, the legs of the quad- 
ruped, the legs and wings of the bird, are 
all modifications of one prototype, modifica- 
tions so evidently designed by supreme in- 
telligence that none can doubt. 

This using one original mould, as it were, 
to shape a thousand different forms is illus- 
trated in every known species of animals, as 
well as in the divisions. Take, as an ex- 
ample, the ancient family of Trilobites, who 
flourished before the coal formations, prob- 
ably twenty millions of years ago. 

Remains have been found in the rocks 
of more than six hundred different species 
of this one family of crustaceans. Each 
species belonged to the same great family, 
but was as distinct from all the rest as 
though it belonged to a different order. 

And the same law of diversity applies to 
individuals as well. Nature never repeats or 
duplicates. Of all the millions of men on 
earth, probably no two are exactly alike. Of 
all the leaves in the forest, of all the blades 
of grass, or seeds of grain, no man ever 
found any two identical in every part. 



30 RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. 

The proofs are so indisputable of an in- 
telligent, ever present, creative agency, that 
it would not seem possible for any one to 
doubt; The theory of evolution by an inhe- 
rent principle or capability of matter to re- 
adjust and modify itself according to 
surrounding conditions, to change itself into 
other and higher species, orders and divi- 
sions of life, is not only absurd and utterly 
unworthy of consideration, but no one ex- 
cept an infidel can in the least degree accede 
to it. 

The laws of nature are the laws which 
the Creator has made — not made so much 
as determined on --- in accordance with which 
He Himself governs and controls all things. 

The workings of nature are as secret and 
noiseless as the movements of a spirit. We 
understand nothing of all that we see ; not 
even concerning the motive powers of our 
own body. We can take it apart, as we 
would a piece of machinery,analyze its com- 
ponent parts, and number and give names ; 
but we have not and never will find one of 
its hundreds of life laboratories. 



RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. 31 

Can we understand or explain the attrac- 
tion of matter? Is It a material substance? In 
what shape does it exist? How can it reach 
forth from the sun, 92,000,000 miles away, 
and hold and swing around itself this ponder- 
ous globe of ours as though with bands of 
steel ? 

How can the rays of the sun pass through 
these millions of miles of vacuum and retain 
their heat? How can they be icy cold on the 
mountain tops and glowing in the valleys? 

The only explanation is that the Supreme 
being upholds, sustains and does all things 
by the power of His might, and that His 
power alone is the law of nature. 

Diversity in the vegetable kingdom was 
equally as great as in the animal, although 
the specimens obtained are fewer in number 
owing to their fragile nature. But these few 
show divisions and subdivisions, orders and 
species, with distinctive differences pervad- 
inor all. 

And from the lowest in the scale, the sea 
weed and moss, to the highest of the coal 
age, to mosses and ferns developed into new 



32 RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. 

families or orders of gigantic and beautiful 
trees, to calamites and conifers ; all bear 
evidence of an All wise designer and Crea- 
tor, in perfection and beauty, and in thorough 
adaptation to their position and uses in crea- 
tion. 

In reflecting on the works of creation 
there is one consideration that is impressive. 
From the dawn of time until the present the 
world has been the arena of violence and 
carnage. 

The first dwellers in the sea, the proto- 
zoans, and many families of radiates and 
molusca, drew nourishment from the sea 
weed and confervae that grew along the 
shores of the ancient seas. But presently 
animals came equipped with carnivorous 
appetites and the slaughter began. And 
this same law of two opposing grand divis- 
sions of animal life prevailed in all subsequent 
creation on land and in the air, as well as in 
the sea. The herbivorous consuming herbs 
and grass and seeds and the carnivorous 
consuming flesh. 

By this wise arrangement an equilibrium 



RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. 33 

was maintained in all three kingdoms. For 
the carniveri, besides being of low fecundity, 
were thoroughly armed with instruments of 
destruction, and being vicious and fierce by 
nature, they were a check unto themselves. 

Nothing can be more interesting than a 
study of the huge flesh eaters of early times. 

The sea had its sharks a hundred feet in 
length; its ganoids, from thirty to fifty feet, 
and clad in scaley armor nearly or quite as 
hard as steel and of most beautiful design. 

One species had arms heavily plated and 
sharp pointed, a solid helmet covering its 
head, and a coat of mail for its body. 
Another had double rows of powerful teeth 
set in plates of solid bone that lined the en- 
tire mouth, protecting it from the shells of 
the mollusks it had to crush for its food. 

The saurians were very numerous, as 
some fifty different species have been found. 
One species had a jointed neck ten feet long, 
with a head like a snake; another had a 
mouth that would open six feet, and great 
eyes nearly two feet in diameter. 

But the most wonderful for that age was 



34 RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. 

a huge bat-like creature, with leathery wings 
twenty feet from tip to tip, and with the jaws 
and teeth of a saurian. 

These were probably only a few of the 
many kinds of strange monsters that terror- 
ized the ancient seas. 

The beasts that roamed the forests and 
along the marshy shores were equally gigan- 
tic and terrible. 

Only a few of the remains have been 
found, and they chiefly of saurians, varying 
in length from thirty to seventy-five feet. 
They were all flesh eaters, and must have 
been fearful in their strength and ferocity. 

The history of the earth, as compiled 
from the testimony of the rocks, is commonly 
divided by geologists into seven great 
periods called ages; the Azoic, (this was the 
preparatory age, and was with out recognized 
fossils), the age of Mollusks, of Fishes, of 
Coal Plants, of Reptiles, of Mammals, and 
of Man. 

Each age, in its turn, had an increase in 
the percentage of its peculiar fossils, a cul- 
mination and a decline. The last was that 



RESTORATION OF THE EARTH. 35 

of mammals. The preceding one, that of 
reptiles, had declined, and the terrible sauri- 
ans were disappearing. The age of mam- 
mals came in with a different and higher 
order of animal life, pachyderms, and other 
herbiverous and peaceful quadrupeds. But 
at the zenith of the age creatures of gigantic 
size roamed the earth from the equator to the 
Arctic circle, and grazed upon the verdant 
plateaus and in the dense thickets of river 
valleys. The mastodon, the megatherium 
and the glyptodon had their days, and with 
their decline came in other smaller but use- 
ful orders, the camel, several species of the 
horse, and other kinds that would be neces- 
sary for the comfort and happiness of man. 
The earth was now comparatively safe and 
the air was pure; the soil, with its grain and 
fruits, was ready for the husbandman, the 
flocks for the shepherd, and the seventh and 
last age would begin. 



36 CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 



CHAPTER V. 

CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 

The fifth day of creation had ended. The 
earth brought forth every green thing, herbs 
and grasses, and trees bearing fruit. And 
the sea was full of every living creature that 
moveth, and the earth of cattle and creeping 
things, and the air of fowls that fly above the 
earth. All were now finished, and all were 
good. 

The work had gone steadily and pro- 
gressively on for millions of years. There 
would be long ages of quiet and peaceful 
growth; then would come times of violent 
changes, and an overwhelming of all things. 

The fossil remains of the giant fishes are 
found crushed beneath mountains of stone, 
while the latter, for miles in depth, are crum- 
pled and contorted like the leaves of a book. 

At one time the temperate zone reached 
to near the present axis of the earth; and 



CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 37 

animals, like those now in Africa and south- 
ern Asia, lived and flourished in northern 
America and Europe. 

Then occurred one of those collossal 
changes, probably by a shifting of the earth's 
axis, that destroyed nearly all of animal and 
vegetable life; and glaciers filled all the val- 
leys, and fields of ice covered most of the 
eastern and western continents. 

These destructive changes seem to have 
been, in part at least, for the purpose of re- 
newing the existing creations, as they were 
always succeeded by new and higher types. 
But the acme designed from the beginning 
had been reached at last, and the next crea- 
tive act would be the chief and final one, the 
one for whose sake all the preceding ones 
had been performed. And performed for 
him, not so much because man himself was 
so superior to all the others, but because of 
his being the race from whom the Lord God 
would create, and elect, and set apart unto 
himself the chiefest of Princes, and hosts of 
angels, to reinhabit the lost kingdom of 
Satan. 



6S CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 

A mighty prince of the Lord had rebelled 
and lost his place in heaven, and now, the 
mightiness in all the universe would be 
chosen, an emanation from God himself; and 
being incarnated with the flesh of the new 
man, would be called the Son of Man, and 
the Son of God, the only Son; and he would 
occupy the vacated place, he and the elect, 
with a new heaven and a new earth. 

"And God said, Let us make man in our 
image, after our likeness, and let them have 
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over 
the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and 
over all the earth, and over every creeping 
thing that creepeth upon the earth." 

"And the Lord formed man of the dust 
of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils 
the breath of life, and man became a living 
soul." 

"And the Lord God planted a garden 
eastward in Eden; and there he put the man 
whom he had formed. And out of the 
ground made the Lord God to grow every 
tree that is pleasant to the sight and good 
for food; the tree of life also in the midst of 



CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 39 

the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of 
good and evil. And a river went out of 
Eden to water the garden." 

"And the Lord God took the man and 
put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it 
and to keep it. And the Lord God com- 
manded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of 
the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the 
tree of knowledge of good and evil thou 
shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." 

''And the Lord God caused a deep sleep 
to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took 
one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in- 
stead thereof; and the rib which the Lord 
God had taken from man, made he a woman, 
and brought her unto the man." 

"And Adam said; This is now bone of 
my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall 
be called woman, because she was taken out 
of man." 

"Therefore shall a man leave his father 
and his mother and shall cleave unto his 
wife; and they shall be one flesh." 

Now the serpent was more subtile than 



40 CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 

any beast of the field which the Lord God 
had made; and he said unto the woman, 
"Yea, hath God said, 'Ye shall not eat of 
every tree of the garden. 

And the woman said unto the serpent, 
*'We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the 
garden ; but of the fruit of the tree which is 
in the midst of the garden God hath said, 
ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch 
it, lest ye die." 

And the serpent said unto the w^oman; 
"Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know 
that in the day ye eat thereof then your eyes 
shall be opened and ye shall be as Gods, 
knowing good and evil." 

And when the woman saw that the tree 
was good for food, and that it was pleasant 
to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make 
one wise; she took of the fruit thereof, and 
did eat, and gave also unto her husband with 
her, and he did eat." 

**And the eyes of them both were op- 
ened." 

And the Lord God said unto the woman, 
"What is this that thou hast done?" And 



CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 41 

the woman said, "The serpent beguiled me 
and I did eat." 

And the Lord God said unto the serpent, 
''Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed 
above all cattle and above every beast of the 
field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust 
thou shalt eat all the days of thy life.*' 

''And I wilt put enmity between thee and 
the woman, and between thy seed and her 
seed; it shalt bruise thy head, and thou shalt 
bruise his heel. 

And unto Adam he said, "In the sweat 
of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou 
return unto the ground, for out of it wast 
thou taken ; for dust thou art, and unto dust 
shalt thou return." 

And the Lord God said, "Behold the man 
is become one of us; to know good and 
evil." And now lest he put forth his hand 
and take also of the tree of life and eat and 
live forever, therefore the Lord God sent 
him from the garden of Eden to till the 
ground from where he was taken. 

So he drove out the man; and he placed 
at the east of the gardenof Eden Cherubims 



42 CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 

and a flaming sword which turned ever way 
to keep the way of the tree of hfe. 

This is the only account of the origin of 
man known amongst men. Only a misty tradi- 
tion of the flood existed amongst the most 
enlightened of ancient nations two thousand 
years after the event. As man was created, 
according to the generally accepted chronol- 
ogy, some seventeen hundred years before 
the flood, and as Adam and Eve were the 
only ones cognizant of all its incidents, and 
would naturally not feel disposed to tell the 
particulars to their children, it is of the high- 
est probability that at the time of the flood, 
even the chief act, the creation of man, was 
forgotten. 

Noah, the chosen of God, would know, 
but naturally the knowledge would be con- 
fined to the servants of God, who were few 
in number; and their account of the works of 
the Lord thousands of years before, would be 
treated as idle dreams, and not worthy of 
being held as even tradition. 

All the events connected with the garden 
of Eden demand the closest attention and 



CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 4o 

most serious thought. And though the 
wisest of various ages of the world, and the 
most learned in the Scriptures in their orig- 
inal tongues, and the most thoroughly versed 
in human science, have devoted years of 
study to it, and written hundreds of books in 
elucidation, nothing is any more clear or de- 
termined than at first. While some contend 
that the serpent was a veritable serpent, an 
ophidian, a snake, a creature, though vicious 
and poisonous, is of the lowest order of intel- 
lect, without cunning and subtility, and in 
being utterly incapable of standing and mov- 
ing erect, could not be abased to crawling in 
the dust; others, by their learned researches 
in dead languages, would make it apparent 
that there was probably some beast of the 
field existing at that time, similar in appear- 
ance to Adam, erect and capable of talking, 
who was the temper, and that he was subse- 
quently reduced to the condition of the pres- 
ent quadrumanous genius, such as the orang 
outang, the wild man of Malay. 

In regard to the penalty inflicted for eat- 
ing of the forbidden fruit, nearly all men 



44 CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 

agree that it was a spiritual death ; that pre- 
vious to the eating man was pure, innocent, 
without guile, even as an angel; that immed- 
iately on eating his nature changed, he was 
not only disobedient to God and unfit for 
Paradise, but his heart, his whole being be- 
came inclined to evil, and a fit abode for the 
spirits of the devil. 

For they contend that when the Lord 
made man out of the dust of the earth, and 
breathed into him the breath of life, and he 
became a living soul, that the term "living" 
soul meant "immortal" soul; and that conse- 
quently the only death that could be, was a 
spiritual death ; and not a death by annihila- 
tion of the spirit, as of the body on its dying — 
but rather of the eternal punishment of the 
spirit after it had left the dead body of dust. 
And that this eternal punishment affected not 
only Adam and Eve, but also all of their 
descendants to the end of time; and that as 
the Savior did not come for four thousand 
years afterwards, and had not in the mean- 
time been held up, even as the brazen ser- 
pent was in the wilderness, that the people 



CREATION AND FALL OF MAN. 45 

might believe and be saved, so all the thou- 
sands, millions, billions of men, women and 
children that had lived and died during that 
long time were forever lost. 

Is it not hard to believe that for a single 
act of disobedience on the part of Adam and 
Eve, not for any great and fearful crime 
committed, as blasphemy toward God, or 
defiantly worshipping devils, but for only 
once eating fruit that the Lord had com- 
manded them not to eat, that they and all 
their descendants of thousands of genera- 
tions, with a few exceptions, should be tor- 
mented day and night through all eternity? 

This is not in accordance with our con- 
ception of the divine power, divine justice 
and divine mercy, as obtained from the 
Bible — so we must conclude that these inter- 
pretations are wrong, in whole or in part; 
and it behooves us to see if such an exposi- 
tion can be o^iven as will be consistent and 
harmonious in all its parts, and will do no 
violence to our firm convictions regarding 
the divine attributes. 



46 IDENTITY OF THE SERPEN':^*. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE NATURE OF THE FALL AND IDENTITY OF 
THE SERPENT. 

We have the strongest evidence that at 
the time Adam was created the earth was in- 
fested with beasts of prey to a far greater 
extent than at this day; and we can not 
doubt that the forests around Eden, which 
was located somewhere in Asia Minor, 
abounded with tigers, leopards, wolves and 
other ferocious animals, as well as with large 
serpents and poisonous reptiles. A walled 
enclosure was necessary for man's helpless 
condition. 

And as the forest did not yield the food 
necessary for his sustenance, a garden was 
planted, a garden of fruit-bearing trees, and 
possibly of wheat, lentils and herbs. 

All animals were wild, and could only be 
tamed after long and persistent effort; and 
probably could not be tamed at all, as nature 



IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. 47 

seems to provide the two kinds, one for the 
forest and persistently wild, the other for the 
use of man. So cattle had to be created, 
and horses, sheep, goats and domestic fowls; 
and these were the kind brought before 
Adam, and by him given names. He re- 
quired these for sacrifice to the Lord, and 
for milk; and the domestic fowls for the eggs 
they yielded. He was not permitted to eat 
their flesh, but their products were equally 
necessary for his health and comfort as were 
the fruits and grains. 

When he was expelled from the garden 
he took these with him ; for we read that of 
his two oldest sons, Cain was a tiller of the 
soil, and Abel was a keeper of sheep ; and 
this, while Adam was comparatively a young 
man. 

So Adam and Eve kept the garden of 
Eden and dressed it, and enjoyed the fruits 
provided by the Lord. 

But the serpent appeared in this peace- 
ful scene to undo the work of the Lord ; the 
old serpent, the great red dragon, that had 
rebelled aga'nst Heaven, and had been cast, 



48 IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. 

he and his angels, to the earth — -the beast 
that, in after times, would war against the 
saints, and persecute the seed of the woman 
— he appeared before Eve, and with his sub- 
tility did beguile her. 

The form assumed would be that of an 
angel, which he was, but shaped to the view 
like unto a man. 

We know not the power the fallen angels 
were permitted to retain, nor the forms they 
took in order to deceive men, and to frus- 
trate the plans of the Lord. *'It came to 
pass, when men began to multiply on the 
face of the earth, and daughters were born 
unto them, that the Sons of God saw the 
daughters of men that they were fair, and 
they took them wives of all which they 
chose; and the Lord said: 'My spirit shall not 
always strive with man, for that he also is flesh.* 

''There were giants in the earth in those 
days; and also after that, when the Sons of 
God came in unto the daughters of men, and 
they bare children to them, the same became 
mighty men, which, were of old, men of 
renown. 



IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. 49 

"And God saw that the wickedness of 
man was great in the earth, and that every 
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was 
only evil continually." 

It is quite evident that the Sons of God 
were not of the family of Adam. He him- 
self was never called the Son of God, so 
how could his sons be called by that name? 
And had these Sons of God been of Adam's 
race, in what way was it worthy of such par- 
ticular mention that they should consider the 
daughters of men fair, and should take them 
wives of all which they chose? Their doing 
so would have been simply in accord with 
the divine command, ' 'to increase and multi- 
ply and replenish the earth," and would have 
resulted in other sons and daughters like 
their first parents, Adam and Eve. 

Particular stress is laid not only on the 
fact of this intercourse between the Sons of 
God and the daughters of men, but also on 
the important fact that their issue, their off- 
spring, were giants, which was not the case 
when the sons and daughters of men inter- 
married. 



OO IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. 

And not only were giants the result of 
this remarkable intermarriage, but iniquity- 
increased. *'God saw that the wickedness 
of man was great in the earth, and that every 
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was 
only evil continually." 

There were Sons of God in the earth, 
but no daughters; and as these Sons of God 
only worked evil with the sons and daughters 
of men, causing every imagination of their 
hearts to be evil continually, must Ave not 
concede the probability of their having been 
the embodied spirits of Satan and his 
Angels? A creation by their own Spirit 
power, permitted from on high, that the in- 
scrutable plans of Heaven might be carried 
out? We must believe this, and that in this 
form the serpent appeared before Eve, and 
talked with her. 

The woman said unto the serpent: **We 
may eat of the fruit of the trees of the gar- 
den, but of the fruit of the tree which is in 
the midst of the garden, God hath said: *Ye 
shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, 
lest ye die.'" 



IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. 61 

It is not only probable but almost posi- 
tive, that the only death known by Adam 
and Eve was that death that the beasts of 
the field died — the ceasing to exist the blot- 
ting out of existence. 

They were created from the ground like 
the others; they lived by the same means of 
breathing, eating and drinking; they would 
die the same death. The penalty threatened 
was not eternal life with eternal torments; 
but a termination of the entire existence of 
body and spirit, or soul, if that word be pre- 
ferred. For **Soul," in the Hebrew, meant 
the spirit or living principle in the animal 
body; and was as applicable to beast as to 
man. Even in the Revelations it is said: 
''And the second angel poured out his vial 
upon the sea; and every living soul died in 
the sea." 

The correctness of this view of the 
penalty is further strengthened by the words 
of the Lord, immediately after the transgres- 
sion. In speaking to Adam he said: *'In the 
sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till 
thou return unto the ground; for out of it 



62 IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. 

wast thou taken ; for dust thou art, and unto 
dust shalt thou return." 

And the Lord God said * 'Behold the man 
is become as one of us, to know good and 
evil. And now lest he put forth his hand, 
and take also of the tree of life and eat, and 
live forever, therefore the Lord God sent 
him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till 
the ground from whence he was taken." 

Did this — ''and live forever"— have refer- 
ence to the body or to the spirit? To both 
the body and the spirit, beyond doubt. 
For the body had only incurred the penalty 
of mortality, which penalty would be strictly 
imposed later on by the dissolution of both 
body and spirit at the same time; but had 
they eaten of the tree of life it would, by the 
law of God governing its virtues, not only 
have removed the death penalty, but would 
have secured immortality to them in body and 
spirit. 

It could not have meant the spirit of man, 
as distinct from his body, and as immortal in 
its very nature — for the words of the Lord 
convey most distinctly that the whole man, 



IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. 53 

body and spirit, is nothing but a creature the 
Lord had made from the ground, and that 
the tree of life alone could give him im- 
mortality either of body or soul. 

To judge Adam and Eve by the new dis- 
pensation, they committed offence even be- 
fore they had eaten of the fruit. For the 
very desire to eat, and in yielding to the de- 
sire, the reaching forth of the hand to take 
it, was wrong; and had they refrained, even 
then, and not eaten, would they not already 
have sinned? 

And the serpent said unto the woman: 
"Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know 
that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes 
shall be opened; and ye shall be as gods, 
knowing good and evil." 

This was a most seductive argument: "To 
be as gods in the knowledge of good and 
evil." 

"She saw it was good for food, was pleas- 
ant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to 
make one wise, so she took of the fruit 
thereof and did eat; and gave also unto her 
husband with her, and he did eat." 



54: IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. 

**And the eyes of them both were 
opened and they knew that they were 
naked." 

When they heard the voice of the Lord 
God they hid themselves, and on being ques- 
tioned confessed their guilt, but laid the 
blame on others. For Adam said: ''The 
woman whom thou gavest to be with me, 
she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." 

And the woman said: ''The serpent be- 
guiled me, and I did eat." 

We can well believe that Eve thought 
him some superior being, wise and truthful; 
and did not know, until her eyes were opened 
and she knew good and evil, that he was the 
serpent indeed that had deceived and be- 
guiled her. 

The Lord did not question the serpent; 
he knew him and his every motive; and in 
the serpent being cursed above all cattle, 
and above every beast of the field, and in 
going on his belly and eating dust all his 
life, the Lord used one as typical of the 
other. As the one serpent could only crawl 
in the dust, and in its noiseless, cowardly 



IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. 55 

way, bite at the heel ; so would the seed of 
this great Serpent only bruise the heel of the 
woman's seed; while hers, in the person of 
the coming Redeemer, would bruise and 
crush his head. 

Unto the woman he said: **I will greatly 
multiply the sorrow of thy conception; in 
sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and 
thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he 
shall rule over thee." 

And unto Adam he said: ^'Cursed is the 
ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou 
eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also 
and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and 
thou shalt eat the herb of the field." 

So he drove out the man. 

And soon deep trouble overtook them. 
For their first born, Cain, was, in his heart, 
the veritable child of Satan, the serpent, and 
was driven a murderer, a vagabond and a 
fugitive from the home of his parents and 
from the face of the Lord. And thus the 
seed of the serpent, in the person of Cain, 
began the attack on the seed of the woman, 
his own mother; and was exiled into the 



56 IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. 

earth, even as his father, the serpent, be- 
fore him, was cast out from heaven down to 
the earth. 

"And there appeared a great wonder in 
heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and 
the moon under her feet, and upon her head 
a crown of twelve stars. 

*'And she being with child cried, travail- 
ing in birth, and pained to be delivered." 

And there appeared another wonder in 
heaven, and behold a great red dragon, hav- 
ing seven heads and ten horns, and seven 
crowns upon his heads. 

*'And the dragon stood before the woman 
which was ready to be delivered, for to de- 
vour her child as soon as it was born. And 
she brought forth a man child who was to 
rule all nations with a rod of iron. 

''And the great dragon was cast out of 
heaven, that old serpent, called the Devil, 
and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world ; 
he was cast out into the earth. And his 
angels were cast out with him. 

"And when the dragon saw that he was 
cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman 



IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. o7 

which brought forth the man child. And to 
the woman were given two wings of a great 
eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, 
into her place, where she is nourished for a 
time, and times, and half a time, from the 
face of the serpent. 

**And the serpent cast out of his mouth 
water as a flood, after the woman, that he 
might cause her to be carried away of the 
flood. 

"And the earth helped the woman, and the 
earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the 
flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. 

*'And the dragon was wroth with the 
woman and went to make war with the rem- 
nant of her seed, which kept the command- 
ments of God." 

The serpent, in Cain, had destroyed the 
only son of Adam, but the Lord interposed 
and drove him forth to his own; and Adam 
again begat *'a son in his own likeness, after 
his image, and called his name Seth." 

And the descendents of Seth called upon 
the name of the Lord, and walked with him 
and were blessed. 



58 — IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. 

For they were the seed that would crush 
the head of the serpent, and the Lord God 
was with them, and had respect to their offer- 
ings, and chose from them such as he had 
ordained unto eternal life. 

Enoch, the son of Jared, walked with 
God three hundred and sixty-five years, and 
was not, for God took him. 

Noah was a just man, and perfect in his 
generations; and we have no reason to doubt 
that during the sixteen hundred and fifty 
years from the creation of Adam to the com 
ing of the flood, thousands of others were 
raised up and set apart unto the coming of 
the new heaven and the new earth. 

The children of the promise were keep- 
ers of sheep and herders of cattle. 

They grazed their flocks and their herds to 
the south and west of Eden, on the plains of 
the Euphrates and of the Hiddekel, and 
roamed through the green forests of the 
bordering hills. 

They walked and mused where God in 
his creation was ever near; and there, be- 
neath the firmament of heaven, they built 



IDENTITY OF THE SERPENT. o9 

their altars of unhewn stone, and sacrificed 
unto the Lord, and communed with him. 

Cain went and dwelt in the land of Nod, 
east of Eden, and founded a city there. His de- 
scendants were expert and cunning in devices. 

They used the harp and the organ, and 
were skilled artificers of brass and iron. 

But iniquity and crime followed them all 
their days, and every evil thing was their por- 
tion. 

*'The earth was full of violence, and it 
grieved the Lord that he had made man." 

Though the descendants of Seth had not 
forgotten the Lord, yet many were led astray 
by the Sons of God, and by their wicked 
kinsmen, the children of Cain. 

The Lord would now utterly destroy this 
mass of reeking crime; would sweep from the 
earth the hordes of materialized demons who 
had, for untold ages, polluted it. 

He had kept his own, and had saved them 
whom he would save, despite the serpent and 
his seed, and he would now destroy man and 
beast, except the few he willed to preserve in 
the Ark. 



60 THE FLOOD. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE FLOOD AND ITS EXTENT. 

Methuselah had just died, aged nine hun- 
dred and sixty-nine years. He was two 
hundred and forty three years old when 
Adam died, so that these two lives reached 
from the creation to the flood. 

And God looked upon the earth, and be- 
hold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted 
his way upon the earth. But Noah found 
grace in the eyes of the Lord. 

And God said unto Noah, **The end of 
all flesh is come before me; for the earth is 
filled with violence through them; and be- 
hold, I will destroy them with the earth. 
Make thee an Ark of gopher wood, rooms 
shalt thou make in the Ark, and shalt pitch 
it within and without with pitch." 

** The length of the Ark shall be three 
hundred cubits (four hundred and seventy- 
five feet), the breadth of it fifty cubits (sev- 



THE FLOOD. 61 

enty-nine feet) and the height of it thirty 
cubits (forty-seven and a half feet.)" 

'* A window shalt thou make to the Ark, 
and a door set in the side; with lower, sec- 
ond and third stories shalt thou make it." 

Thus did Noah as the Lord had com- 
manded him. 

And the Lord said unto Noah, * 'Come 
thou and all thy house into the Ark; for thee 
have I seen righteous before me in this gen- 
eration." 

Noah was six hundred years old, and had 
three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, who 
were near a hundred years of age. 

And Noah and his wife, and his three 
sons and their wives, went into the Ark. 
And they took in with them fowls of the air, 
and cattle, and creeping things; in twos of 
unclean things, and sevens of clean ones. 
And they took in food for themselves, and 
for all the creatures that were with them. 
And they went in as the Lord commanded, 
and the Lord shut them in. 

"And it came to pass, after seven days, 
that the waters of the flood were upon the 



62 THE FLOOD. 

earth. And all the fountains of the great 
deep were broken up, and the windows of 
heaven were opened." 

" And the flood was forty days upon the 
earth, and the waters prevailed exceedingly, 
and all the high hills that were under the 
whole' heaven were covered." 

* 'Fifteen cubits upward did the waters pre- 
vail; and the mountains were covered." 

And every living substance was destroyed 
which was upon the face of the ground, both 
man, and cattle, and creeping things, and 
the fowl of the heaven; and they were 
destroyed from the earth, and Noah only 
remained alive, and they that were with him 
in the Ark . 

* ' And the waters prevailed upon the earth 
a hundred and fifty days." 

** And God remembered Noah, and made 
a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters 
assuaged; the fountains also of the deep and 
the windows of heaven were stopped, and 
the rain from heaven was restrained. And 
the waters returned from off the earth con- 
tinually; and after the end of the hundred 



THE FLOOD. 63 

and fifty days the waters were abated." 

And the Ark rested on the mountains of 
Ararat; and after five and forty days were 
the tops of the mountains seen. 

And in the second month, on the seven 
and twentieth day, was the earth dried. 

And God spake to Noah saying, **Go 
forth out of the Ark, thou and all that are with 
thee; and be fruitful and multiply upon the 
earth. 

And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, 
and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 

And the Lord smelled a sweet savor. • 

'* And the Lord said in his heart, * I will 
not again curse the ground any more for 
man's sake: for the imagination of man's 
heart is evil from his youth; neither will I 
again smite any more every living thing as I 
have done. While the earth remaineth, seed 
time and harvest, and cold and heat, and 
summer and winter, and day and night, shall 
not cease." 

''And God blessed Noah and his sons, 
and said unto them, ' Be fruitful and multiply 
and replenish the earth.'" 



64 THE FLOOD. 

" And the fear of you and the dread of 
you shall be upon every beast of the earth, 
and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that 
moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes 
of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.'* 

** Every moving thing that liveth shall be 
meat for you ; even as the green herbs have 
I given you all things." 

* ' But flesh with the life thereof, which is 
the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." 

**And surely your blood of your lives 
will I require ; at the hand of every beast 
will I require it; and at the hand of man; at 
the hand of every man's brother will I require 
the life of man." 

*' Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man 
shall his blood be shed; for in the image of 
God made he man." 

''And the Lord did set his bow in the 
cloud, as a token of this everlasting covenant 
between him and every living thing, that 
the waters should no more become a flood to 
destroy all flesh." 

The earth was purified with the flood of 
waters. 



a: 

CQ 

z 




O 
O 

lU 
V- 

o 

lU 
CQ 



V- 

lU 
CQ 

z 

V- 




THE FLOOD. 65 

Man, and serpents of flesh, and all living 
creatures with them, were destroyed. 

To estimate the number of men that 
perished would be only wild conjecture. 
Still it hardly seems probable that there were 
over three millions drowned. 

Although there were some sixteen hun- 
dred years in which to multiply and replen- 
ish the earth, and the average length of life 
of those mentioned was near nine hundred 
years, yet the average age before they begat 
children was one hundred and ten years, and 
the ratio of increase, as compared with that 
of modern times, was very low. 

The territory they occupied contained not 
over four million square miles. And we must 
also reflect that although probably half of the 
population were keepers of sheep and cattle; 
and that their thousands of flocks and herds 
would require ample grazing room; still 
their population and their herds did not force 
the two families of Seth and Cain beyond the 
distance of visiting neighbors, as is proven 
by the similarity of their family names. 

They had no ancestral names from which 



66 THE FLOOD. 

to select and bestow on their children; so we 
must conclude that this similarity resulted 
either from consultation between the parents, 
or because one family knew that the other 
had already used it. 

The following are the names of the eld- 
est or heiring sons, beginning with, 

ADAM. 

Seth, Cain, 

Ends, Enoch, 

Cainan, Irad, 

Mahalaleel, Mehujael, 

Jared, Methuselah, 

Enoch, Lamech, 

Methuselah, Jabal, 
Lamech, 
Noah. 

And furthermore, there is little doubt 
that fhey dwelt chiefly along the rich valleys 
and plateaus of ancient rivers that, heading 
in the garden of Eden, flowed near the pres- 
ent Euphrates and Tigris ; probably stretched 
somewhat farther eastward toward the In- 
dus, and westward toward the Mediterranean. 



THE FLOOD. 67 

But there is no doubt that all the families, 
all the descendants of Abel, and of Cain, and 
the iniquitous issue of the sons of God, lived, 
and sinned, and died in this great basin. 

We can now, in part, conceive the mag- 
nitude of this catastrophe, and the method of 
its accomplishment. 

The Caucasian mountains on the north, 
and the Himalayan ranges and spurs on the 
east, were the walls to hold the waters where 
men dwelt. 

When the time came, and Noah was shut 
in the Ark, all the land within this enclosure 
began to sink — to sink lower, lower — and 
the flood gates of heaven were opened, and 
it rained day and night. 

And while rivers of waters came rushing 
down the mountain sides, the land was still 
sinking, slowly sinking, until the fountains of 
the great deep were broken up. 

And the Caspian sea burst forth and 
rushed southward along the western base of 
the Himalayas; and the Black and Mediter- 
ranean, mingling their angry waters, swept 
eastward and southward. While on the 



68 THE FLOOD. 

south, the Red sea, and the Arabian, and the 
Bay of Bengal, gave way, and the Indian 
ocean came pouring in; and the waves of 
waters rolled over and crushed fair cities of 
frantic men, over plains of fleeing and bel- 
lowing cattle and screaming beasts; over 
Pison and Gihon, over Hiddekel and the 
Euphrates — on, and on, till all the waters 
met in great mountain waves, and beat 
against Himalayas' granite walls. 

Mount Horeb slowly sank beneath the 
waters, and Mount Sinai, and cedar covered 
Lebanon, and craggy Ararat. 

Fifteen cubits upward did the waters pre- 
vail — all the mountains were covered; all the 
known world was beneath the flood. 

And the waters prevailed upon the earth 
a hundred and fifty days. 

But God remembered Noah, and made a 
wind to pass over the earth, and the waters 
assuaged. The fountains also of the deep, 
and the windows of heaven were stopped. 

And the earth slowing rising, the waters 
returned from off the earth continually, and 
after the end of the hundred and fifty days 



THE FLOOD. 69 

the waters were abated, and the Ark rested 
on the mountains of Ararat; and after five 
and forty days were the tops of the moun- 
tains seen rising from the waters. 

And in the second month, on the seventh 
and twentieth day, was the earth dried. 



FROM THE FLOOD TO MOSES. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FROM THE FLOOD TO MOSES. 

**And Noah and his sons, and all living 
things that were with them in the Ark, went 
forth to multiply and replenish the earth." 

Mankind was no longer restricted to a 
diet of fruits and herbs, but was permitted to 
eat the flesh of all kinds of animals, fish and 
fowls. But one condition was imposed, one 
clear, emphatic command given, that is 
equally binding on all mankind at this day^ 
and that was, that they should not eat the 
*' life of the flesh which is the blood thereof." 

And immediately thereafter the life of 
man began to shorten. Noah's reached the 
usual length — nine hundred and fifty years, 
but Shem's only six hundred. 

Three hundred years after the flood the 
life of man had decreased to less than two 
hundred. 

Abram died, aged one hundred and 



FROM THE FLOOD TO MOSES. 71 

seventy-five; Jacob, one hundred and forty- 
seven; and it is quite probable that the aver- 
age Hfe of mankind at that time did not ex- 
ceed three score years and ten. 

Shem, Ham and Japhet begat sons and 
daughters ; and marriages occurring now at 
an early age, and there being no wars or 
plagues to destroy, the increase was rapid. 
In the days of Peleg, who was born one 
hundred years after the flood, men must have 
become very numerous; for having, in their 
migrations, reached the plain of Shinar, they 
there began to build the tower of Babel. 
But the Lord seeing evil in their design, con- 
founded their language, and scattered them 
from thence over the face of the earth; and 
at that time was the earth divided. 

Three hundred and fifty-two years after 
the flood there was born in Ur of the 
Chaldees, Abram, the son of Terah, a man 
whom the Lord promised to bless above all 
men, whose seed should be as the sand on 
the sea shore and as the stars in heaven for 
number, of whom should be a nation and 
company of nations, and kings should come 



72 FROM THE FLOOD TO MOSES. 

out of his loins; and in his seed should all 
the nations of the earth be blessed. 

When Abram was seventy-five years old 
the Lord commanded him to leave Haran, 
and to go and behold the country he would 
show him. So he took his wife, Sarah, who 
was also his half sister, and his nephew, 
Lot, and all their substance, and went south- 
ward through Canaan, the promised land. 

They wandered to and fro through the 
country, and at the end of ten years were 
settled; Abram in Mamre, and Lot in or near 
Sodom. 

It was while living there that Abram, 
after the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and of 
the kings that were with him, came to Salem 
and paid tribute to Melchizedek, the king 
thereof, and who was also a priest of the 
most high God. 

It is probable that Melchizedek was Shem ; 
for Shem lived for sixty-five years after that, 
and Noah had died eighty-seven years 
before. 

Abram lived in the vale of Mamre for 
many years, and while living there the cities 



FROM THE FLOOD TO MOSES. 73 

of Sodom and Gomorrah became so fearfully 
wicked that the Lord sent two angels and 
destroyed them, and all the people of the 
plain, by raining on them fire and brimstone. 

When Abram got up early the morning 
they were destroyed, and looked toward the 
two cities, behold the smoke of the country 
went up as the smoke of a furnace. 

It seems probable that previous to the 
destruction of these cities and the plain, the 
river Jordan ran entirely through Arabia, and 
emptied into the Red sea. 

There are indications of some large river 
having at one time ran through western 
Arabia, ran from the north, and had along Its 
banks a nation or nations of people, greatly 
skilled in architecture, as is evidenced by 
some splendid ruins remaining to this day. 

But the Jordan now empties its clear 
waters into that great cess-pool, the Dead 
sea, and nearly all south of there Is given 
over to desolation. 

We can not but wonder at the minute 
description of the appearance and the pecul- 
iar acts of the three angels that came to 



74 FROM THE FLOOD TO MOSES. 

destroy these cities of the plain of Siddim. 

" Abram sat in the tent door in the heat 
of the day. 

" And he Hfted up his eyes and looked, 
and lo ! three men stood by him, and when 
he saw he ran to met them from the tent door 
and bowed himself toward the ground. 

**And said; 'My Lord, if now I have 
found favor in thy sight pass not away, I pray 
thee, from thy servant. Let a little water, I 
pray thee, be fetched and wash your feet, 
and rest yourselves under the tree. 

** And I will fetch a morsel of bread and 
comfort ye your hearts ; after that ye shall 
pass on ; for therefore are ye come to your 
servant." And they said, '* So do, as thou 
hast said." And Abraham hastened into the 
tent unto Sarah, and said, *' Make ready 
quickly three measures of fine meal, knead 
it and make cakes upon the hearth." And 
Abraham ran unto the herd and fetched a 
calf tender and good and gave it unto a young 
man; and he hastened to dress it." 

''And he took butter and milk, and the 
calf which he had dressed and set it before 



FROM THE FLOOD TO MOSES. 7o 

them ; and he stood by them under the tree 
and they did eat!' 

"• And there came two angels to Sodom 
at even, and Lot seeing them rose up to 
meet them, and he bowed himself with his 
face toward the ground. 

*'And he said, * Behold now my Lord 
turn in, I pray you, into your servant's 
house and tarry all night, and wash your feet 
and ye shall rise up early and go on your 
ways." 

*'And he pressed upon them greatly, and 
they turned in unto him and entered into his 
house, and he made them a feast and did 
bake unleavened bread and they did eat. 

After the feast when Lot was expostulat- 
ing with the Sodomites, the men put forth 
their hands and pulled Lot into the house to 
them and shut the door. 

And when the morn arose and while he 
lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand 
and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the 
hand of his two daughters, and they brought 
him forth and set him without the city. 

These angels of the Lord had all the 



To FROM THE FLOOD TO MOSES. 

physical, material properties of men. They 
talked as men face to face with Abraham and 
Sarah, and with Lot and his family; they ate 
with Abraham and partook of the feast with 
Lot. And they* put forth their hands and 
pulled Lot Into the house with the physical 
touch and force of man. And likewise the 
next morning they took Lot and his family 
by the hand and led them forth from Sodom. 

And Jacob, when in or near the country 
of Edom, wrestled with a man until the 
break of day, and when the man saw that he 
prevailed not, he touched Jacob in the hol- 
low of the thigh and lamed him. And this 
was an angrel of the Lord. 

Can we not then conclude with reason 
that Satan and his angels could also take 
unto themselves physical bodies, when nec- 
essary to accomplish their evil purposes? 

Abraham, for the hundred years that he 
lived after leaving Haran, had no permanent 
abiding place, but was a wanderer in the land 
promised to his seed. 

He died and was succeeded by his son 
Isaac. He also, like his father, Abrahami, 



FROM THE FLOOD TO MOSES. 77 

pitched his tent and grazed his flocks 
wherever seemed to him best. 

And he in turn was succeeded by his 
son Jacob, the twin brother of Esau. Esau 
was the elder, but was perverse, and married 
Canaanitish women; and being by his moth- 
er's partiality for Jacob, and by her cunning, 
deprived of his father's blessing, he threat- 
ened to kill his brother. So Jacob fled to 
Haran where his relations lived; and there 
he married two of his cousins, Rachel and 
Leah, and from these two, and their two 
hand maids or servants, sprung the twelve 
tribes of Israel. 

The cup of iniquity of the inhabitants of 
Canaan was not yet full, and Israel and his 
children, his sons and his grand sons, num- 
bered but seventy souls. 

So driven out of Canaan by reason of the 
drought there, Jacob went into Egypt unto 
his son Joseph whom the Lord had sent be- 
fore to prepare the way for him, and finding 
favor with Pharaoh, the king of the coun- 
try, he and his family and their herds were 
placed in the land of Goshen, the most de- 



FROM THE FLOOD TO MOSES. 



sirable part of the kingdom. And there 
they remained for over two hundred years 
protected and nourished by the most power- 
ful people of those times; increased and 
grew into a nation of themselves, a nation 
great and wealthy. 

But the time was drawing nigh for them 
to return and occupy the land promised to 
Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. 

The Egyptians were becoming jealous of 
their great wealth and growth as a distinct 
people, and were hard taskmasters unto them. 

But oppression and tyranny would make 
them the more willing to obey the command 
of the Lord, to go forth on their long jour- 
ney to the land of Canaan. 

And Pharaoh's heart would be hardened 
that he would object to their going, and the 
Lord would do wonderful things, and would 
take out his people with an uplifted arm. 



THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 79 



CHAPTER IX. 

EXODUS OF THE JEWS FROM EGYPT. 

The Bible makes no allusion to any form 
of idolatry having prevailed before the flood, 
and perhaps there was none. Satan and his 
angels, in the sons of God and their off- 
spring, were ever present; so that images 
and incantations were hardly possible, and not 
at all probable. Imbued with the spirit of 
Satan himself, and probably fully cognizant 
of it, they had nothing of superior evil to fear. 

But the flood came and destroyed all 
flesh, and it may have been that these spirits 
of evil that could only be drowned as to 
their bodies of flesh, as the swine were 
drowned in the Sea of Galilee, were re- 
strained from ever' again dwelling on earth 
as before the flood, and could only enter 
into and occupy those human bodies already 
created. 

They found a speedy lodgement in the 



THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 



person of Ham, whom they influenced to 
do evil; and, as generation after generation 
came and passed away, their power grew, 
until they controlled all mankind. Families, 
and people, and nations, had their gods of 
gold, and silver, and stone; their Baal, their 
Ashtoreth, their Chemosh, their Molech, at 
whose shrines they offerred sacrifices, and 
bowed down and worshipped. 

The descendants of Shem_ were idolaters, 
and servants of Satan, as was the whole 
world, with a few exceptions of individuals 
whom the Lord had chosen and sealed for 
himself. 

When Jacob moved from Padanaram his 
best loved wife, Rachael, stole her father s 
images, and probably had them with her 
when she died. 

That the Israelites were idolaters while 
they sojourned in Egypt is proven by their 
making the golden calf, even while the cloud 
of the Lord was on the mountain above them. 
And after their settlement in Canaan, by their 
continuous lapsing into sacrificing unto the 
various idols of that country. 



THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 81 

No branch of the human family was more 
utterly depraved, more corrupt and given 
over to the working of every iniquity, than 
were those descendants of Ham, theCanaan- 
ites. The destruction of Sodom and Gomor- 
rah by fire from heaven, in the days of 
Abraham, was a special and unprecedented 
punishment for enormity of crime. 

The Egyptians were also descendants of 
Ham, and with their idols had a system of 
priests, magicians and sorcerers, whom the 
Lord would now confound and punish. 

The Israelites were not a people that were 
especially better than others. 

They did not choose the Lord as their 
king and law giver, but the Lord chose them, 
as he had promised Abraham, and in accord- 
ance with his own designs and plans from 
the beginning. 

They were always a rebellious and stiff 
necked people, whom the most severe and 
oft repeated punishments could not make 
obedient. 

But the Lord knew from the first what 
they would do, and, having accomplished 



82 THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 

those things for which they were chosen, he 
drove them forth from his presence, and scat- 
tered them to the four corners of the earth, 
never again to be his people, but as long as 
time would last to be a reproach and a by- 
word amongst all nations. 

It seems probable that the Lord did not 
make himself known to the Hebrews during 
their entire sojourn in Egypt. For when he 
appeared to Moses in a burning bush, at the 
foot of Mt. Horeb, he said unto Moses; *' I 
have surely seen the affliction of my people 
which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry 
by reason of their task masters; for I know 
their sorrows, and I am come down to deliver 
them out of the hands of the Egyptians. 
Come now, therefore, and I will send thee un- 
to Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my 
people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.'' 

*' And Moses said unto God, * Behold 
when I come unto the children of Israel, and 
shall say unto them, the God of your fathers 
hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to 
me, * What is his name?' What shall I say 
unto them?" 



THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 83 

This was a strange question for Moses to 
ask, and shows clearly that he, as well as the 
other Israelites, had little, if any, knowledge 
of the God of their fathers, of Abraham, 
Isaac and Jacob. 

So Moses returned from Midian unto 
Egypt, taking with him the rod which at Mt. 
Horeb had become a serpent, and taking also 
with him his brother Aaron, who had gone 
into the wilderness to meet him, and who 
would continue with him as spokesman, and 
went into the presence of Pharaoh to perform 
those wonders that would show the Egypt- 
ians, and the Israelites, that there was no one 
in all the earth like the Lord. 

For this very purpose had the Lord raised 
up Pharaoh, and hardened his heart and the 
heart of his people, that he might multiply 
his signs and his wonders in the land of 
Egypt. And in the nature and sequence of 
these wonders there is something strangely 
symbolic. To place them in the order of 
their occurrence they stand thus: 



84 



THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 







Are we not justified in thinking that 
these are typical of man's Hfe from the gar- 
den of Eden to the end of time? 

The Serpents — SymboHze the fall of man, 
and also that the Lord would finally 
be victorious, even as the serpent of 
his creation did overcome and devour 
those of the magicians. 



THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 85 

The Blood — That shed by Cain when he 
killed Abel, the first fruits of the fall, 
and indicative of the violence and 
crime that would follow. 

The Frogs, Lice and Flies — The inflictions 
that no doubt were visited on men in 
the days of Adam and Methuselah. 

The Murrain — The flood that destroyed all 
life where men dwelt. 

Boils, Hail, Locusts — The visitations of 
divine wrath that man often suffered 
after the flood. 

The Darkness (for three days) — The time 
that the Savior would remain in the 
tomb, and probably also emblematical 
of the great blindness that would al- 
ways prevail even after the Sun of 
Righteousness had risen. 

For as the hearts of the Egyptians 
were hardened, and their eyes blinded, 
so would it be with the Israelites at 
last ; and with other nations and people. 

Death — The slaying of the first born through- 
out all of Egypt, as Cain, the first born 
of Satan, slew Abel, the first born of 



8G THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 

Adam; and also pointing to the final 
termination and blotting out of all 
earthly things. 
"About midnight will I go out into the 
midst of Egypt." 

**And all the first born in the land of 
Egypt shall die; from the first born of 
Pharaoh that setteth upon his throne, even 
unto the first born of the maid servant that 
is behind the mill; and all the first born of 

beasts. And there shall be a great cry 
throughout all the land of Egypt, such as 
there was none like it, nor shall be like it any 
more." 

How seldom, after the fall, was the first 
born of men ever chosen of the Lord. 

To the second, or some younger son, 
was nearly always accorded supremacy. 
Abel, Shem, Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and 
Moses were eminent examples of this mys- 
tic decree of heaven. 

But the time came when even as the first 
born of Eve was the child of Satan, the 
prince of darkness, so the first born of 



THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 87 

another woman, Mary, was the son, the only- 
begotten son, of the King of Heaven. 

So the Lord did wondrous things before 
Pharaoh and his servants, destroyed them 
with plagues, and brought judgments on 
their gods, the gods whose priests were 
servants of Satan, and in his name did mira- 
cles for a time. 

Having finished all his terrible judgments, 
and crushed the Egyptians into the dust, he 
brought forth his people Israel, with an out- 
stretched arm. 

For he had said unto the children of 
Israel: " I am the Lord, and I will bring you 
out from under the burdens of the Egyp- 
tians, and I will rid you of their bondage, 
and I will redeem you with a stretched-out 
arm, and with great judgments. 

*'And I will take you for a people, and I 
will be to you a God; and ye shall know 
that I am the Lord, your God, which bringeth 
you out from under the burdens of the 
Egyptians." 

And nothing but Omnipotent power could 



88 THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 

have accomplished this great work. The 
mind is bewildered at its magnitude. 

As there were about six hundred thous- 
and men over twenty years old and fit to go 
forth to war, the entire people must there- 
fore have numbered at least four million 
of human souls, besides their herds and 
flocks. 

All this vast army of helpless beings 
were to be taken across the desert in Egypt, 
across the Red Sea, and the great desert of 
Arabia; to be fed, and led, and protected like 
little children. 

Nothing is more wonderful, more awe- 
inspiring in all Biblical history, than these 
forty years of pilgrimage of the house of 
Israel. 

From the very instant of their leaving the 
land of Goshen, the Lord had sent his angel 
to guide them in a pillar of cloud by day, 
and of fire by night. And when at the end 
of their third day's journey they had reached 
the Red sea, and Pharaoh and his great army 
had overtaken them — for the Lord had again 



THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 89 

hardened Pharaoh's heart, and induced him 
to follow with all his chariots and his army, 
and he pursued and drew nigh unto them — 
then the pillar of a cloud removed back and 
rested between the two armies, and unto the 
Egyptians it was a cloud and darkness, but 
to the camp of Israel it gave light by night. 

**And Moses stretched out his hand over 
the sea, and the Lord caused the sea to go 
back by a strong east wind all that night, 
and made the sea a dry land, and the waters 
were divided." 

**And the children of Israel went into 
the midst of the sea upon the dry ground* 
and the waters were a wall unto them on their 
right hand and on their left.'* 

The Red Sea was about fifteen miles wide 
where they crossed, and from five to twenty- 
five feet deep. The roadway must have 
been some two hundred feet wide to have 
enabled them to cross over in one night. 

And all that long night, while the Egyp- 
tians rested and slept in the darkness of one 
side of the cloud, the other side threw its 
bright light straight along that marvelous 



90 THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 

road to the farther shore — and hurrying, 
pouring steadily on between the crystal walls, 
were the fleeing hosts of Israel. All the 
long night the heavenly brightness glowed, 
the walls of waters stood firm and immova- 
ble as the everlasting hills, until the last of 
Israel had safely reached the shore. But 
in the early morn, while they were yet cross- 
ing, the cloud of darkness was removed from 
before the eyes of Pharaoh and his army, 
and, seeing the Israelites fleeing, they rushed 
thither along the same road. The Lord 
delayed them by taking off their chariot 
wheels, but they still pursued, until all were 
in the waters, Pharaoh and his six hundred 
chariots, and his captains, and his great 
army; and then the walls of waters were 
loosed, and rushed together with a great 
noise, and overthrew and drowned all the 
Egyptians, so that not one of them escaped 
with his life. Truly the Lord of Hosts had 
brought forth his people with signs and 
wonders, and with a stretched-out arm, and 
had executed judgment on the gods of 
Egypt. 



THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 91 

And now safe from further pursuit, and 
guided by the angel of the Lord, they com- 
menced their journey across the sandy 
desert, towards the promised land. 

And when their provisions gave out the 
Lord rained them bread from heaven. It 
fell at night with the dew, and in the morning 
when the dew was dried the manna was found 
on the ground. It was white like frost and 
fine as coriander seed — and when ground in 
a mortar and baked, it tasted like wafers 
made with honey. The people gathered 
enough for one day's use only — if they 
gathered more it bred worms and stank. 
On Saturdays two days' portion fell and was 
gathered, as none fell on Sunday. And this 
extra portion did not spoil as on other days. 

And this bread, provided by the angel of 
God, never failed in all the forty years that 
the millions of Israel roamed the dreary 
wastes of Arabia. 

And when they became thirsty, if they 
found water that was bitter the ano^el made it 
sweet and wholesome; if they found none, he 



92 THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 

would bring a gushing fountain from the 
soHd rock. 

And so they journeyed on, following the 
cloud of God until they reached Mt. Sinai, 
and there they camped. And Moses went 
up unto God, and the Lord called unto him 
out of the mountain saying: "Tell the 
children of Israel; ye have seen what I did 
unto the Egyptians, and how I bear you on 
eagle wings and brought you unto myself." 

*' Now, therefore, if you will obey my 
voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye 
shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above 
all people; for all the earth is mine. And 
ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and 
a holy nation." 

And when Moses told the people as the 
Lord had commanded him, all the people 
answered and said; '' All that the Lord hath 
spoken we will do." 

And the Lord said unto Moses: " Lo, I 
come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the 
people may hear when I speak with thee, and 
believe thee forever." 

And the Lord said unto Moses: '' Go 



THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 93 

unto the people and sanctify them to-day and 
to-morrow, and let them wash their clothes, 
and be ready against the third day; for 
the third day the Lord will come down in 

the sight of all the people upon Mount 

S* • >> 
mai. 

And it came to pass on the third day, in 
the morning, that there were thunders and 
lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, 
and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; 
so that all the people that was in the camp 
trembled. 

And Moses brought forth the people out 
of the camp to meet with God; and they 
stood at the nether part of the mount. 

And Mount Sinai was altogether on a 
smoke, because the Lord descended upon it 
in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as 
the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount 
quaked greatly. And when the voice of the 
trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and 
louder, Moses spake and God answered him 
by a voice. And all the people saw the 
thunderings, and the lightnings, and the 
noise of the trumpet, and the mountain 



di THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 

smoking, and they removed and stood afar 
off. And they said unto Moses: ** Speak 
thou with us, and we will hear; but let not 
God speak with us, lest we die.'* 

And Moses said unto them: **Fear not, 
for God is come to prove you; and that his 
fear may be before your faces, that ye sin 
not," 

And the people stood afar off, and Moses 
drew near unto the thick darkness where 
God was. 

And the Lord said unto Moses: "Thus 
shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: 
Ye have seen that I have talked with you 
from heaven. 

" Ye shall not make with me gods of 
silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods 
of gold. 

"An altar of earth thou shalt make unto 
me, and shall sacrifice thereon thy burnt 
offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep 
and thine oxen ; in all places where I record 
my name I will come unto thee, and I will 
bless thee." 

And there, midst thunderings and light- 



THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT. 95 

nings, with the people standing afar off, he 
o-ave unto them his commandments and his 

o 

ordinance, which they were to observe 
and obey through all their generations. 

These were the first and only code of 
divine laws ever issued, and upon them are 
founded all civil law and equity. 



96 AFTER THE EXODUS. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE JEWS IN THE WILDERNESS AND IN CANAAN. 

And the Lord there gave unto them laws 
to govern their every relation of life, as fam- 
ilies, as fellow citizens, as subjects of the 
great King of heaven. No contingencies 
that could arise were left unprovided for; no 
obligations or requirements undetermined. 

And Moses provided two stones, and the 
Lord wrote thereon the laws of the covenant, 
that they could be preserved; and directed 
Moses to build an ark in which to keep the 
stones, and above the ark a mercy seat where 
the Lord would appear unto his priests, and 
which should be a holy place; and a taber- 
nacle, to enclose these sacred things. 

The most minute directions were given 
for the construction of all these , and work- 
men were especially endowed with wisdom 
and cunning for the purpose. 

Every detail of official duty and ceremony 



AFTER THE EXODUS. 97 

was clearly prescribed ; and even the tribe, and 
individuals of the tribe, selected to minister 
and serve in the house of God. 

He had indeed taken this great nation of 
Israelites as his own chosen people, and had 
blessed them beyond all the families of the 
earth, and had shown them signs, and won- 
ders, and great judgments; the like of which 
the world never saw before, and never would 
again. 

And he would continue to be their God 
and the source of every earthly blessing to 
them; would go before and weaken the 
hearts of their enemies; would tear down the 
walled cities and send plagues on the inhab- 
itants thereof. 

He would make these children of Abra- 
ham a nation of priests, a people holy unto 
himself, if they would only obey his com- 
malids and observe his statutes to do them. 

But they rebelled even while the glory of 
the Lord covered the mountain before them. 
Although they had seen his fierce anger 
against the Egyptians, and his loving kind- 
ness toward themselves; that he had brought 



98 AFTER THE EXODUS. 

them thus far safely, and was even then feed- 
ing them with bread from heaven; yet they 
rebelled, denied his authority over them, and 
had Aaron make for them an idol of gold, 
before which they bowed down and wor- 
shipped. 

Does it seem possible for human intelli- 
gence to have been so obtuse ? Or must we 
conclude that they were purposely blinded, 
and given over to Satan? 

A few thousands were slain, and the rest 
repented. 

Ten different times did they incur the 
anger of God; as many times as there had 
been plagues sent against Egypt. Still he did 
not destroy them, but punished and forgave. 

For he remembered his covenant with 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give Canaan 
unto their seed for an inheritance; and he 
would give it them. But all those who 
were twenty years old and upward when 
they came out of Egypt, six hundred thous- 
and men, fit for war, none of these, except 
Caleb and Joshua, should ever enter into the 
promised land. 



AFTER THE EXODUS. 99 

They had no doubt been idolaters in 
Egypt, and were not fit to be servants of the 
only true God. So they were kept wander- 
ing in the wilderness for forty years, until all 
had died and their bodies been buried in the 
sands of the desert. 

There had grown up now unto Israel an 
army of six hundred thousand fighting men 
who had never bowed the knee to idols. 
They had been in the continuous presence 
and service of the Lord for forty years; 
had seen all of his wonders, his infinite 
power, and his never-failing care of them; 
had learned to reverence and obey ; and would 
now be taken into Canaan, a land that flowed 
with milk and honey, and which would be 
unto them an everlasting inheritance, if they 
continued obedient unto God. 

Entering Canaan with this great army, 
and assisted by the Lord, they attacked the 
cities and destroyed all the people; all the 
men, women and children; and all wherein 
was the breath of life ; tore down the altars of 
their gods, cut down their groves, and 
burned their graven images. For the sins 



100 AFTER THE EXODUS. 

of these people of Canaan were great, the 
cup of their iniquity was full; and the Lord 
would utterly destroy them from the face of 
the earth. 

So the Lord established his people in this 
garden spot of all the earth, allotted them 
their separate possessions, and placed the fear 
of them and the dread of them on all the 
neighboring nations. 

They had nothing to fear, for the Lord 
was with them to guide and bless; nothing 
to fear but the sure and fearful punishment 
that would be visited on them, should they 
serve other gods as did the Canaanites before 
them. And well they knew this, for it was 
given them as the first and most emphasized 
of the ten commandments. 

And God spake these words saying: ** I 
am the Lord God which have brought thee 
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of 
bondage." 

**Thou shalt have no other gods before 
me." 

**Thou shalt not make unto thee any 
graven image, or any likeness of anything 



AFTER THE EXODUS. 101 

that is in heaven above, or that is in the 
earth beneath, or that is in the water under 
the earth." 

" Thou shalt not bow down thyself to 
them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord thy 
God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity 
of the fathers upon the children unto the 
third and fourth generation of them that hate 
me, and showing mercy unto thousands of 
them that love me and keep my command- 
ments." 

The Lord knew the proneness of men to 
worship images and similitudes, and though 
it might be one representative of the Lord 
himself, it would be none the less an act of 
idolatry. 

Moses said unto the Hebrews: ** The 
day that thou stoodest before the Lord thy 
God in Horeb, and you came near and stood 
under the mountain, and the mountain burned 
with fire unto the midst of heaven, with 
darkness, clouds and thick darkness: 

* * And the Lord spake unto you out of 
the midst of fire; ye heard the voice of the 
words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard 



102 AFTER THE EXODUS. 

a voice. Take ye therefore good heed unto 
yourselves (for ye saw no manner of simili- 
tude on the day that the Lord spake unto 
you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire). 

** Lest ye corrupt yourselves and make 
you a graven image the similitude of any 
figure, the likeness of male or female." 

There must be no worship of intermedi- 
ate things, no bowing down before anything 
in heaven above or in the earth beneath. 
The only true, acceptable worship is unto the 
Lord God himself, for all else is an abomina- 
tion in his sight. 

Moses, before his death, had written out 
all the laws for his people, had rehearsed all 
the wonderful things that the Lord had done 
for them up to that time, enumerated the 
great blessings that would attend obedience 
to the laws, and the fearful calamities that 
would follow disobedience. And, after his 
death, as Joshua, his successor, lead them 
forward, when they came to the river Jordan 
and would cross over, he called to him all 
the chief men of the congregation to see 
what the Lord would do for him, even as he 



AFTER THE EXODUS. 103 

had done for Moses. So when the bearers 
of the ark stepped in the edge of the waters, 
the river, although at a flood and overrun- 
ning its banks, stopped flowing and stood up 
on either hand, until all the people had passed 
over, and the ark also had reached dry land. 

And afterwards, when fighting the five 
Kings of the Armorites before Gibeon, Josh- 
ua said, in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand 
thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, moon, in 
the valley of Ajalon." 

And the sun stood still and the moon 
stayed until the people avenged themselves 
upon their enemies. So the sun stood still 
in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go 
down about a whole day. 

And there was no day like that before it 
or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the 
voice of a man ; for the Lord fought for 
Israel. 

During all the life of Joshua there was 
war continually in subduing and destroying 
the inhabitants of the country, as the Lord 
had commanded them. 

And the Lord was with them in their 



104 AFTER THE EXODUS. 

battles, sending down great hail from heaven 
to kill the Canaanltes, and armies of hornets 
to drive them from the country. 

And after Joshua died the wars continued, 
for the country was not yet all subdued, 
neither had all the children of Israel secured 
their inheritance. And even after all of the 
tribes had become settled in their posses- 
sions, and were free to enjoy the fruits of 
their labors, peace and plenty were never 
theirs for more than a few years at a time. 

"For after the death of Joshua and of 
the elders that outlived him, there arose 
another generation after them which knew 
not the Lord, nor yet the works which he 
had done for Israel. 

**And the children of Israel did evil in 
the sight of the Lord and served Baalim. 

**And when the Lord raised them up 
judges, then the Lord was with the judge, 
and delivered them out of the hand of their 
enemies all the days of the judge (for it re- 
pented the Lord because of their groanings 
by reason of them that oppressed them and 
vexed them). And it came to pass when 



AFTER THE EXODUS. 105 

the judge was dead, that they returned and 
corrupted themselves more than their fathers 
in following other gods to serve them ; they 
ceased not from their own doings nor from 
their stubborn way." 

The history of the Jewish nation for the 
fifteen hundred years of its existence, from the 
exodus from Egypt until its final dispersion, 
was but a repetition of these four incidents : 
idolatry, punishment, repentance, forgive- 
ness. 

The Lord was there with the ark of the 
covenant, and was carrying out his own 
plans. 

He had his thousands and tens of thous- 
ands of true followers, whom the devil could 
not seduce to idolatry. 

He had great and wise kings who served 
him ; he had legions of prophets who 
warned the wicked and comforted the right- 
eous, and revealed the hidden things of 
God. 

David, the chosen of the Lord, the great 
warrior, the grand psalmist, reigned four 
hundred years after the Israelites entered 



106 AFTER THE EXODUS. 

Canaan ; Solomon, his son, and the wisest 
and richest of kings, built the temple of the 
Lord, and the Jewish nation was at the zenith 
of its power and glory. 

Four hundred years more and the temple 
was destroyed, the ark of the covenant dis- 
appeared, never to be found again, and the 
children of Israel were led into captivity. 

They returned some fifty years after, but 
were never the same again. The fear of 
them and the dread of them no longer existed 
amonof the nations. Their idolatries were 
nearly national, and they were speedily laps- 
ing into all the iniquities of the Gentiles. 
Still the Lord did not forget his covenant 
with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He was 
always with their seed to bless or to punish. 
He held them together as a people distinct 
from all others, a people with his mark upon 
them that would not be removed as lonof as 
the world endured. And they grew still less 
potential in the world's history. They were 
a prey to various nations, for while others 
increased they decreased, and their servitude 
finally became continuous and grievous. 



AFTER THE EXODUS. 107 

But a king was promised them, a king of the 
stock of David, who would redeem and rule 
his people of Israel. They knew of but one 
kind of kingly authority, and that was the 
kind exercised by David, a king who would 
lead them forth to destroy and subdue, a 
king and a mighty warrior, who could break 
the yoke of the Roman bondage. 

For fifteen hundred years the house of 
Israel had been familiar with the mighty 
works of the Lord. 

They were his chosen people, and he 
was not only their God, but their King, who 
had unnumbered times directed their wars, 
planned their battles, and insured them 
victory. If he now would send them a 
king they would expect one, as of old, vested 
with earthly power and clothed in regal 
splendor. Miracles were still being per- 
formed, probably more than the stirring of 
the waters of the pool of Siloam; so that the 
healing of the sick, or causing the blind to 
see, was not a convincing attestation of divine 
authority to this people to whom the Lord 
was wont to appear with signs, and wonders, 



108 AFRER THE EXODUS. 

and manifestations of Almighty power. 

A king was promised, a king was looked 
for, and none but the one coming vested 
with kingly attributes would be accepted by 
this wilful, stiff-necked people. 

The centuries had rolled by, and all the 
covenants of the Lord had been kept. Unto 
the seed of Abraham had been the promises, 
and they had attained unto all, except that 
which then drew nigh to fulfillment. But 
they did not comprehend it, neither do they 
unto this day. For their hearts were hard- 
ened, and their eyes were blinded that they 
could not see. 

The Lord had always manifested him- 
self to man as Jehovah — the Almighty 
Creator and Ruler of the universe — had 
rained fire and brimstone on the wicked, had 
sent fearful plagues on great nations of 
idolaters, had talked to man midst thunder- 
ings and lightnings and quaking mountains. 
But now a new dispensation would begin, 
one affecting the heart of man; quiet, sub- 
dued, spiritual, as was symbolized by the 
still small voice with which the Lord on 



AFTER THE EXODUS. 109 

Mt. Horeb manifested himself unto Moses. 
And the new dynasty would have but one 
king, Emanuel, the Prince of Peace; and he 
would not reign on earth, neither would he 
remove the political bondage; but he would 
save his people, Gentile as well as Jew, from 
the bondage of sin, and, in a new heaven and 
a new earth, would reign as King and 
sovereign Lord for ever and ever. 



1 10 PLANS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGEABLE. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE DESIGNS OF OMNIPOTENCE, UNALTERABLE 
AND MERCIFUL. 

Before proceeding further, we will return 
to the farthest past of man's existence, and, 
making a general resume of the most im- 
portant events, endeavor to make such con- 
clusions as events seem to warrant. 

No one who believes in an Omnipotent 
Creator can, for an instant, doubt that when 
He created Adam and Eve he had designs 
and plans that extended through all time 
for their completion. 

That these plans could not possibly be 
frustrated, nor in the least interfered with, is 
also beyond question. 

The very quality of infinity is of such 
absoluteness as precludes the possibility of 
effective resistance or interference. 

We must accept in the fullest sense of 
infinity every attribute of the God of the 



PLANS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGEABLE. Ill 

universe, and rest always In the perfect as- 
surance that nothing ever has occurred, or 
ever can occur, in opposition to his will. 

We must, therefore, conclude with cer- 
tainty that his plans were exactly carried 
out. Why were two created, a male and a 
female, and commanded to multiply and re- 
plenish the earth, If there had been even a 
possibility of their always remaining in the 
garden of Eden ? 

And the placing of the forbidden tree in 
such convenient and conspicuous proximity, 
its subtle temptation, aided and made sure 
by the chief spirit of all evil, resulted only 
in accordance wath the divine plan — that 
plan which, conceived millions of years be- 
fore, had gradually, through the unnumbered 
ages, progressed and unfolded to the point 
where the great Red Dragon would renew 
his warfare against the king of heaven. 

But there v/ould be this difference In the 
contest : Then it was amidst and against the 
realms of his rightful sovereign; now it would 
be carried on in his own ancient kingdom, 
and his defeat would be final and eternal. 



1 12 PLANS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGAEBLE. 

We have na reason to think that Satan 
was cognizant of the plans of the Lord. But 
the Lord had said : ** Let us make man in our 
image, after our Hkeness." And having made 
him, and placed him in a carefully prepared 
garden, with the fruit of the trees of life and 
death before him, Satan entered there, and 
with him death. 

And after Satan, in his son Cain, had 
killed Abel, the son of Adam, the Lord re- 
strained him, and drove him hence. 

And another son having been born unto 
Adam, the Lord began raising unto himself 
those spirits of immortality that would event- 
ually reoccupy the forfeited kingdom of Satan 
and his angels. 

And the method of obstruction adopted 
by Satan — the tempting of Adam to mor- 
talitv — was made thus to recoil on his own 
followers. 

For the wicked, in dying, would die to 
all eternity; while the chosen of the Lord 
would die indeed, as all must die, but, by a 
plan that would be consummated four thous- 
and years after, they would, at the last, be 



PLANS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGEABLE. 113 

raised up from death and the grave, to Hfe 
and immortahty. 

And this plan of redemption from death 
would revert back and cover all the elect 
from the very beginning of time ; and that, 
too, without any knowledge on their part of 
any of the circumstances, conditions or pro- 
visions of this plan. 

They were the spirits that the Lord had 
created for himself, were obedient to his 
commands, and would be redeemed from 
death. 

While those not chosen and elected for 
eternal life would simply be left inheritors 
of eternal oblivion. 

Why should we think otherwise ? Con- 
sider, for a moment, the incidents of the trans- 
gression of Adam. He had just been cre- 
ated ; was utterly ignorant of all spiritual 
existence ; was simple and trusting. The 
angel of the Lord told him not to eat of 
the fruit of a certain tree, for If he did, he 
would die; and the angel left him. Another 
angel soon appeared, an evil angel, and told 
him that he would not die if he ate of the 



114 PLANS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGEABLE. 

fruit, but, on the contrary, would become 
wise as a god, knowing good and evil. He 
ate without hesitation, and became mortal, 
just as he would have become immortal had 
he eaten of the tree of life. 

But nearly all men believe that man was 
created immortal. If he was immortal, eat- 
ing of the forbidden fruit could not have 
made him mortal. So they say that this 
penalty of death was applicable to the im- 
mortal spirit in man, and meant in reality its 
etefnal punishment, its never-ending tor- 
ments in the flames and amidst the fiery ser- 
pents of the deepest hell prepared for the 
devil and his angels, and where the flames 
of the burning, and the cries and groans of 
agony, would never cease, day nor night, 
through all eternity. 

Is it possible that the majority of men 
have such a poor conception of the infinite 
mercy, the infinite justice, of the God of the 
universe ? 

If Adam was immortal and perfect, what 
was the object of the temptation? Could it 
possibly add in any way whatever to the 



PLANS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGEABLE. 115 

happiness of man, or to the glory of God? 

And suppose that he had withstood the 
temptation, what then ? 

As he did not stand, but fell, what was 
gained ? 

Do they think that the Lord was experi- 
menting with his new creation; and as he had 
not made him strong enough to withstand 
the temptation, he would therefore cast the 
majority, the vast majority, of his descend- 
ents into the everlasting torments of hell ? 

Man, proud, vain, boastful man, con- 
siders and esteems himself as too important 
a factor in the universe; he conceives that for 
him, as the lord of all the earth, was the sun 
made to give light by day, and the moon and 
the stars light by night; and that he, in the 
power of his mind and in the brightness and 
keenness of his intellect, is but little inferior 
to the angels of God. 

He can not reconcile himself to the truth, 
that he is but dust of the earth; but grass 
that is cut down and withered ; a lighted taper 
that is blown out, and is gone. 

Possessed of this feeling of vain import- 



116 PLAJfS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGEABLE. 

ance he would rather consign ninety-nine one 
hundredths of the entire human race to 
eternal torments, than to consent to oblivion 
for the unredeemed, and thereby justify the 
mercy and loving- kindness of his God. 

Does he ever reflect on the almost total 
ignorance of all religious obligations that has 
always existed amongst men? And the 
entire absence of consideration for the lives 
of men, when the Lord has visited them in 
his wrath ? 

There were no preachers of righteousness, 
before the flood ; no warnings to the wicked 
of eternal sufferings hereafter. 

But the flood came, and all were drowned 
in their sins. Of the millions on earth only 
eight were saved alive. 

After the flood all men fell immediately 
into idolatry, and all forms of iniquity that 
were abhorent to the Lord. 

Even the descendents of Noah who, it is 
supposed, founded the Chinese empire, are 
the most obdurate of idolaters unto this day. 
Abram was called from amidst the idols of 
his people and given a mission and ordained 



PLANS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGEABLE. 117 

to a destiny by the Lord to accomplish his 
own designs. 

There was a Melchisedek, a priest of the 
most high God; but, so far as we are in- 
formed, all that surrounded him were servants 
of Satan. 

Sodom and Gomorrah were pre-eminently 
corrupt; to such degree that the Lord sent 
an angel to destroy them ; but he sent none 
to warn. 

When the Israelites were about to leave 
Egypt for the land of Canaan, the hearts of 
the Egyptians were hardened by the Lord 
that he might show his signs and his great 
wonders. 

And he not only afflicted them in their 
bodies and in their property, but in the last 
plague sent he killed all of their first born, 
not only of beasts, but of men; so that many 
millions of people, and probably mostly of 
children, in an instant of time, at the dark, 
silent hour of midnight, were struck by the 
Angel of Death. 

And the heart of Pharoah was aofain 
hardened, and his great army was led into 



118 PLANS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGEABLE. 

the Red sea, and were drowned. While the 
IsraeHtes were in the wilderness they were 
rebellious and disobedient; so the Lord sent 
fire to consume them, serpents to bite; and 
even opened the earth, and crushed them in 
its crevices. And he kept them in the wild- 
erness until six hundred thousand men of war 
had died; and with the aged men, and the 
women and children that also died, during 
their forty years of wanderings, the total num- 
ber that died and were buried in the desert 
sands was probably not less than two millions. 

And when the warriors of Israel, over a 
half million strong, under the leadership and 
with the assistance of the Lord of Hosts, 
swarmed into Canaan, attacked and destroyed 
over three score cities, and killed all the in- 
habitants thereof, men, women and children, 
can any estimate be formed of the millions 
upon millions of human beings cut off in their 
sins? 

And we must not forget that not only these 
had died without warning, but that the entire 
world was, and had always been, and would 
continue to be until the coming of the 



PLANS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGEABLE. 119 

Savior, in a condition of midnight darkness 
as to any revelation regarding a future state 
of existence. 

And we are not aware that any particular 
code of laws was given by the Lord for the 
observance of man until that given to the 
Hebrews, twenty-five hundred years after the 
creation of man. And this was made 
applicable only to them; so that all the rest 
of the world was left without any moral laws 
of any kind. 

All the penalties imposed under the Jew- 
ish code were of a physical and temporal 
nature; such as subjection and spoliation by 
enemies, failure of crops, and bodily afflic- 
tions. 

No allusion, intelligible to even the He- 
brews, was made regarding a heaven and a 
hell. These were the enshrouded mysteries 
that would remain such unto the coming of 
the one who would be the first to rise from 
the grave, and the herald of glad tidings to 
all men. 

What then is the only reasonable con- 
clusion ? Is it not that as the Lord has made 



120 PLANS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGEABLE. 

himself known to only a few of the myriads 
of mankind, the few chosen, selected ones to 
whom he in his own mysterious way, revealed 
himself and his will, and left all the remain- 
der to live and die strangers to the living 
God, so he would, in thus ordaining the few 
unto eternal life, without merit on their part, 
cast all the others aside with the rest of living, 
sentient beings, to live and die, and be no 
more forever? This seems the only logical, 
inevitable conclusion. 

The potter makes vessels, some unto 
honor, some unto dishonor. 

Beginning with Seth and ending with the 
calling of Abraham, a period of two thousand 
years, there was no religious organization on 
earth. The Lord gave his laws and his 
spirit to his own, individually, wherever they 
might be. 

With Abraham he began the first church; 
and for the next two thousand years Abra- 
ham and his descendents, the twelve tribes 
of Israel, with the Lord as the head, was the 
only church, the only recipient and observer 
of divine coifimands in all the world. 



PLANS OF OMNIPOTENCE UNCHANGEABLE. 121 

But this was now to be supplanted. The 
Lord would yield up his headship, and his 
church of the twelve tribes, unto his Son, 
the Christ, and his twelve apostles. A 
church of laws, of sacrifices and physical 
penalties, would give place to a church of 
faith, of spiritual influence and regeneration. 



122 JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE ADVENT OF JESUS, AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 

And now would be the beginning of the 
end. 

To the circumstances and events now 
about to transpire pointed all the laws and 
the prophets. 

From the death through Adam, down the 
long ages to the life through Christ, from the 
garden of Eden to the garden of Gethse- 
mane, all events wherein was seen the hand 
of God, flowed in steady, unswerving cur- 
rents to this grand terminal of full fruition. 

As Cain, the first born of Eve, was the 
son of Satan, and brought in death, so 
Christ, the first born of Mary, was the son 
of the living God, and would bring the dead 
of the Lord to life again. 

The coming of the Saviour was the solv- 
ing of the great mystery of all past ages, 
the object of all types and symbols. 



JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 123 

The forty days' rain of the flood, the 
three days of Egyptian darkness, the brazen 
serpent in the wilderness, were but types of 
his life and mission. 

The earth reclaimed from its desolation, 
man created, and Satan loosed for a season, 
were the three primal steps leading up to 
this culmination of the Lord's grand design. 

Satan was apparently victorious, but was 
always vanquished. He had beguiled Adam, 
had slain Abel, and corrupted the antedi- 
luvian world; and, after the flood, had the 
entire earth in his service. But what had 
he gained ? The great Jehovah was guiding 
and shaping all to the accomplishment of 
his own designs. The destinies of nations, 
as of individuals, were in the hollow of his 
hand. He worked in the silent, mysterious, 
irresistable ways of Omnipotent power. He 
foresaw from the beginning, because he fore- 
ordained; and he foreordained, because all 
things in the universe being his by creation 
and maintenance, possess no inherent inde- 
pendent powers of their own, but would 
either instantly cease to exist without his 



124 JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 

sustaining, guiding presence; or, as to im- 
mortal spirits, his omniscience and omnipo- 
tence utterly preclude the possibility of any 
thing being left to chance, or to the caprice 
of finite creatures. 

He is the great I Am, the first and the 
last, the one only God of all. 

In ages past the Lord had said by his 
prophet : ** Behold, a virgin shall conceive 
and bear a son, and shall call his name Im- 
manuel. And the government shall be 
upon his shoulders, and his name shall be 
called wonderful counsellor, the Mighty God, 
the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." 

* * And the spirit of the Lord shall rest 
upon him, the spirit of wisdom and under- 
standing." 

" And he shall stand for an ensign of the 
people, to it shall the Gentiles seek; and his 
rest shall be glorious." 

The angel Gabriel was sent from God 
unto a city of Gallilee named Nazareth. 

To a virgin espoused to a man whose 
name was Joseph of the house of David; and 
the virgin's name was Mary, 



JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 125 

And the angel came in unto her and 
said: '* Hail, thou that are highly favored, 
the Lord is with thee; blessed are thou 
amongst women." 

And when she saw him she was troubled 
at his saying and cast in her mind what man- 
ner of salutation this should be. 

And the angel said unto her: " Fear not, 
Mary; for thou hast found favor with the 
Lord. And behold thou shalt conceive in 
thy womb and bring forth a son, and shall 
call his name Jesus." 

"He shall be great, and shall be called 
the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God 
shall give unto him the throne of his father, 
David." 

'* And He shall reign over the house of 
Jacob for ever, and of His kingdom there 
shall be no end." 

Then said Mary unto the angel: ** How 
shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" 

And the angel answered and said unto 
her: *'The Holy Ghost shall come upon 
thee and the power of the Highest shall over 
shadow thee; therefore, also that holy thing 



126 JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 

which shall be bom of thee shall be called 
the Son of God." 

*'And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she 
hath also conceived a son in her old age; and 
this is the sixth month with her who was 
called barren. For with God nothing shall 
be impossible." 

And Mary said, '' Behold, the handmaid 
of the Lord — be it unto me according to thy 
word." And the angel departed from her. 

And it came to pass that Joseph and 
Mary went up into Bethlehem of Judeato be 
taxed. 

And while they were there the days were 
accomplished that she should be delivered. 

And she brought forth her first born and 
wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid 
him in a manger; for there was no room for 
them in the inn. 

And there were in the same country 
shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch 
over their flocks by night. 

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon 
them, and the glory of the Lord shone round 
about them, and they were sore afraid. And 



JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 127 

the angel said unto them: "Fear not, for 
behold I bring you good tidings of great 
joy, which shall be to all people." 

" For unto you Is born this day in the city 
of David a Saviour, which Is Christ the 
Lord." 

** And this shall be a sign unto you. Ye 
shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling 
clothes, lying In a manger." And suddenly 
there was with the angel a multitude of the 
heavenly host praising God and saying: 

" Glory to God in the highest, and on 
earth peace, good will toward men." 

And the child grew and waxed strong in 
spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of 
God was upon him ; and he increased in wis- 
dom and stature, and in favor with God and 
man. 

There is mention of only one incident in 
the life of Jesus until he was thirty years of 
age. 

When he was twelve years old he was for 
several days In the temple of Jerusalem talk- 
ing with the priests; was with them asking 
and answering questions. And his knowl- 



128 JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 

edge and understanding excited wonder. 

He then returned home with his parents, 
remaining with them until he entered upon 
his ministry. 

He may have been educated in the ordi- 
nary learning of that day, and no doubt was. 
His reputed father, Joseph, was a carpenter 
of ordinary means; and though there is men- 
tion of Jesus reading in the synagogue, 
nothing is said of his ever having written 
anything at any time. 

But he had all the human learning that 
was necessary, and whether it was acquired or 
bestowed is immaterial. 

Human learning and knowledge, beyond 
a very limited point, add nothing to happi- 
ness, and very seldom fail to do injury. It 
takes so little to make men proud and vain, 
that much learning has an effect like riches, 
in disqualifying for pure and humble thought, 
and unquestioning obedience* 

John came as a forerunner of the Saviour, 
warning the people that the Messiah was at 
hand, charging them to repent of all their 
wickedness and be baptized with water, as a 



JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 129 

token of purification, and of initiation into a 
new order, a new kingdom. 

The baptism of John was an order from 
the King of kings, and was preparatory to the 
incoming of the Son; was the first step in 
setting aside the Jewish church, a church of 
blood, for the new one in which the sins of 
the people would be washed away as by 
water. 

And Jesus went also and was baptized by 
John, in fulfillment of the law, and as an in- 
duction into his kingdom. 

And as he came up from the baptism, the 
spirit of God, in the form of a dove, descended 
and rested on him, and a voice was heard 
saying : ' ' This is my beloved Son, in whom 
I am well pleased." 

And immediately after, the spirit led him 
into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. 

And after he had fasted forty days and 
forty nights he was ahungered, and Satan 
appeared to tempt him. 

He tempted him to show his power as 
the Son of God, by turning stones into bread 
to satisfy his hunger — to throw himself from 



130 JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 

a pinnacle of the temple — and lastly, from a 
high mountain, where could be seen vast 
kingdoms and glittering palaces of royalty; 
all of these he offered him, all the kingdoms 
of the worlds if he would only fall down and 
worship him. 

Satan thus appealed to probably the three 
strongest feelings of the human heart — appe- 
tite, pride and ambition. 

In Satan thus tempting Jesus may there 
not be more things suggested than we have 
been willing to admit? 

Satan had tempted Adam, and he fell; 
had tempted thousands of others — Moses, 
Aaron, David, Solomon — yea, millions of 
men, and all had sinned. Even he himself, 
and his angels, had been tempted through 
pride, and had fallen beyond redemption. 

But all these, and himself, and all the 
angels of light, were finite creatures, with 
allegiance due the King of Heaven. 

Is it not almost certain that he thought 
Jesus was of no superior type? 

Had Satan known that Jesus was the very 
Son of the great King, was an emanation 



JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 131 

from, a part of the spirit of Gri, would he 
not have known that he could not be 
tempted? That as Son and Heir of the 
Father all the world was his already, and to 
him all things were possible? 

And if he did not know, is it not an 
authorized inference that with the advent of 
Jesus began the separate existence of the 
Son of God? 

From the very beginning and throughout 
the entire Revelation of the Lord, the idea 
of oneness is conveyed. And whenever any 
allusion is made to any thing resembling a 
separation, it is a sending forth of His spirit 
for some designated purpose — and even then 
it appears not so much a distinct individuality, 
as a reaching forth of an indivisible portion 
of an all pervading presence. 

But with the birth of Jesus there seemed 
to be an actual separation from the one God 
and His spirit, the Holy Ghost, of a portion 
of their infinite spirit, and incarnating it with 
the body and blood of man. 

And in this union of mortality and im- 
mortality, Son of man and Son of God, 



132 JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 

Jesus was unknown to Satan — unknown and 
incorruptable. 

Is not the theme of redemption incon- 
ceivably more grand on the plan of this con- 
ception ? 

There is not created another Prince, with 
a host of angels, to take the place of the 
great rebel and his legions; but the very Son 
of his Sovereign Lord, and Son of the man 
whom he had seduced to rebellion, will suc- 
ceed him, not only as Prince, but as King 
and Judge. 

After Satan had departed from tempting 
Jesus, angels came and ministered to him. 
He then returned from the wilderness, and 
going forth into Gallilee and elsewhere, met 
and called his twelve disciples who were to 
remain with him during his three years of 
ministry. He did not select from the priests 
— nor from the learned — nor from those in 
high places — but he chose fishermen and 
others in the humble walks of life — whose 
faith would be strong, whose convictions 
deep and lasting. 

And for three years he went through 



JESUS AND HIS TEMPTATIONS. 133 

Judea and the country round about, preach- 
ing righteousness and obedience to God; 
heaHng the sick, and casting out devils. For 
the devils knew him now — knew him as the 
Son of God, and with power to punish them. 

But it is not evident that they understood 
that he was first to die and be raised from 
death before his mission was finished. For 
it was Satan himself that entered into Judas 
Iscariot and induced him to betray his master 
unto death, which he certainly would not 
have done had he known that he was carry- 
ing out the plans of the Lord that were 
designed to end in his own eternal discom- 
fiture. 

The doctrine that Jesus taught was clear, 
simple, easy to understand. It was only to 
believe that he was the Son of God, and to 
live a pure life. 

His mission was nearly finished. He had 
kept unto himself all that his Father had 
given him, and the end drew near. 



134 HIS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HIS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. 

There is one peculiar characteristic in the 
entire history of the Saviour that is worthy 
of profound consideration — and that is, the 
quiet, undemonstrative nature of all its 
incidents. 

The conception was known to only four 
persons — the parents of Jesus and of John. 
Or, if to others, to only a few of their rela- 
tives. And his birth was not even at his 
mother's home, but at the house of a stranger 
— and not even in the house proper, but in a 
stable or manger of the inn. 

The announcement of this most glorious 
event was made only to a few shepherds who 
were attending their flocks by night, and who 
hurried to the inn to do homage to the new 
born Immanuel. When he w^as taken into 
the temple to be circumcised, the high priest 
knew that he was the Son of God, as did also 



HIS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. 135 

an aged prophetess who was there, but none 
others seem to have known. But it must at 
least have been talked about to have reached 
the ears of Herod, probably through the 
inquiries of the shepherds; and he, becoming 
alarmed at the probability of there being a 
claimant to the throne of King David, sent 
forth his soldiers, and killed all the male 
children that were two years old and under, 
throughout Bethlehem and all the coasts 
thereof, expecting in that way to certainly 
slay the reputed claimant. 

After the return of Joseph and Mary from 
Egypt, whither they had fled from Herod, 
and their settlement in Nazareth, the life of 
Jesus seems to have been as simple, unob- 
trusive and unnoted as that of any young 
man of the day. 

When entering on his ministry, he pro- 
vided no worldly means of any kind, had no 
abiding place, no place where to lay his 
head. 

And as he went over all Judea and the 
neighboring districts, calling sinners to re- 
pentance, and performing his wonderful mir- 



136 HIS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. 

acles, there was no change in his bearing. 
He spoke as one having authority, as know- 
ing the truth of his words, the faithfulness 
of his promises, but his language was sim- 
ple and plain, his voice low and gentle, his 
every act kind and compassionate. 

He exercised no dictatorial rule over his 
disciples, but was to them more like an elder 
brother than a master; instructing them in 
the ways of righteousness, and admonishing 
them when in error. 

The human mind could never have con- 
ceived a beinof of such attributes as was 
Jesus of Nazareth. 

He was the Son of God, yet the very 
embodiment of gentleness and of loving 
kindness. 

He never refused a favor asked, and 
never was a prayer unheard. 

He even shed tears over the sufferings 
of others, tears of sympathy, tears that 
showed he had feelings like other men, — 
human feelings, that could suffer pain, could 
moan and weep. 

He seemed not so much to fear and 



HIS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEiMNATION. 137 

deprecate the punishment of the wicked, as 
to have a deep, abiding love for his dis- 
ciples, and for all those that would come 
unto him; a love that promised, not tem- 
poral blessings and pleasures, but a mansion 
in his Father's house. 

And with what infinite love and rever- 
ence he always spoke of his Father; even as 
a dependent, loving child that never ques- 
tioned and never had a doubt. All honor, 
all glory was due the Father, and obedience 
even unto death. A sin against the Son 
could be forgiven, but against the Father, or 
his Holy Spirit, never; neither in this world, 
nor in the world to come. 

And as the Son loved the Father, even so 
the Father loved the Son, and had his 
angels guarding his every step. 

The entrance of Jesus iato Jerusalem 
was consistent with what had gone before. 

He drew near and entered the city where 
was the temple of his Father, not in a char- 
iot of state and clothed in fine attire, but as 
a tired, weary traveler, poorly and humbly 
clad, and riding on an ass. 



lo8 HIS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. 

He ate the passover supper with his dis- 
ciples, the last with them on earth; in a 
chamber by themselves. He talked with 
them and explained many things that he 
wished them to understand, and gave them 
his final instructions. And he took a basin 

of water and a towel and washed their feet 

» 

as an example unto them. 

And he took bread and gave thanks and 
broke it and gave it unto them and said, 
"Eat, this is my body, which is given for 
you." And he took the cup and blessed it, 
and gave it to them, saying, " Drink ye all 
of it, for this is my blood of the new testa- 
ment, which is shed for many, for the remis- 
sion of sins." 

And Judas Iscariot, Satan having entered 
into him, went out to betray his master. 

And Jesus and his disciples went forth, 
and it was night, and they came into the 
mount of Olives. 

''Then cometh Jesus with them unto a 
place called Gethsemane, and saith unto his 
disciples, '' Sit ye here while I go and pray 
yonder." 



HIS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. 139 

And he took with him Peter, and the 
two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sor- 
rowful and very heavy. 

And he went a Httle farther, and fell on 
his face and prayed, saying, ' 'Oh, my Father, 
if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; 
nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." 

And there appeared an angel unto him 
from heaven, strengthening him. 

And being in an agony, he prayed more 
earnestly; and his sweat was, as it were, 
great drops of blood falling down to the 
ground. 

And when he rose from prayer and was 
come to his disciples, he found them sleeping. 

And immediately a multitude appeared, 
and Judas, one of the twelve, went before 
them, and drew near unto Jesus to kiss him. 
But Jesus said unto him, ''Judas, betrayest 
thou the Son of man with a kiss?" 

And when Simon Peter drew his sword 
and cut off an ear of a servant of the priest, 
Jesus chided him, and put forth his hand and 
healed the ear. 

And they took Jesus before the high 



140 lilS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. 

priest and mocked him, and a servant of the 
priest even struck him. And they held a 
council to get ready their false testimony. 

And when it was daylight they took 
Jesus unto the hall of judgement, and they 
themselves went not in, lest they should be 
defiled; but that they might eat the passover. 

Pilate then went out unto them and said: 
''What accusation bring ye against this 
manr 

They answered and said unto him, '* If 
he were not a malefactor, we would not have 
delivered him up unto thee.'* Then said 
Pilate unto them, "Take ye him, and judge 
him according to your law." The Jews, 
therefore, said unto him, ''It is not lawful for 
us to put any man to death." 

Then Pilate entered unto the judgement 
hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto 
him, "Art thou the King of the Jews?" 

Jesus answered him, " Sayest thou this 
thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee 
of me?" 

Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew? Thine 
own nation, and the chief priests, have deliv- 



HIS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. 141 

ered thee unto me. What hast thou done ?" 

Jesus answered, '* My kingdom is not of 
this world; if my kingdom were of this 
world, then would my servants fight that I 
should not be delivered to the Jews; but now 
is my kingdom not from hence." 

And Pilate, being desirous to release 
Jesus, for his wife had sent unto him saying, 
" Have nothing to. do with that just man, for 
I have suffered many things this day in a 
dream because of him," went again out to 
the Jews and said unto them, '* I find in him 
no fault at all." 

** But ye have a custom that I should re- 
lease unto you one at the passover; will ye, 
therefore, that I release unto you the King 
of the Jews.'^" 

Then cried they all saying,** Not this man, 
but Barabbas." Now, Barabbas was a robber 
and a murderer. Then Pilate took Jesus and 
scourged him. And the soldiers platted a 
crown of thorns and put it on his head, and 
they put on him a purple robe, and in his hand 
a reed, and said, ** Hail, King of the Jews," 
and they smote him with their hands. 



142 HIS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. 

Pilate went forth again unto the Jews, 
and saith unto them, ** Behold, I bring him 
forth to you, that ye may know that I find 
no fault with him." Then came Jesus forth 
wearing the crown of thorns and the purple 
robe. 

And Pilate saith unto them, '* Behold the 
man." 

When the chief priests and officers 
saw him, they cried out, ''Crucify him, cru- 
cify him." Pilate saith unto them, ''Take ye 
him and crucify him, for I find no fault in 
him." The Jews answered him, " We have 
a law, and by our law he ought to die, be- 
cause he made himself the Son of God." 
When Pilate heard that saying, he was the 
more afraid, and went again unto the judge- 
ment hall, and saith unto Jesus, " Whence 
art thou?" But Jesus gave him no answer. 

Then saith Pilate unto him, " Speakest 
thou not unto me: knowest thou not that I 
have power to crucify thee, and have power 
to release thee?" Jesus answered, *'Thou 
couldst have no power at all against me, ex- 
cept it were given thee from above; there- 



UlS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. 143 

fore, he that delivered me unto thee hath the 
greater sin." 

And from thenceforth Pilot sought to re- 
lease him; but the Jews cried out saying, **If 
thou let this man go, thou art not Cesar's 
friend; whoever maketh himself a king 
speaketh against Cesar." 

When Pilate heard that he brought Jesus 
forth and sat down in the judgement seat in 
a place that is called (in the Hebrew) 
Gabbatha. 

And it was the preparation of the pass- 
over, and about the sixth hour; and he said 
unto the Jews, "Behold your king ! " But 
they cried out, "Away with him, away with 
him; crucify him." 

Pilate saith unto them, ''Shall I crucify 
your king?" The chief priests answered, 
*' We have no king but Cesar." 

And when Pilate saw that he could pre- 
vail nothing, but that rather a tumult was 
made, he took water and washed his hands 
before the multitude, saying," I am innocent 
of the blood of this just person, see ye to 
it." Then answered all the people and said, 



144 HIS MINISTRY, TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION. 

" His blood be on us, and our children." 
Then delivered he him unto them to be 
crucified, and they took Jesus and led him 
away. 



HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 145 



CHAPTER XIV. 

HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 

And as they led him away they laid hold 
upon one Simeon, a Cyrenian, coming out of 
the country, and on him they laid the cross, 
that he might bear it with Jesus. 

And when they come to the place, which 
is called Calvary, there they crucified him; 
and also the two malefactors, one on the 
right hand and the other on the left; and 
Jesus said, " Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do." 

And they set up over his head his accu- 
sation, written '*Jesus of Nazareth, the King 
of the Jews." 

And they that passed by reviled him, 
wagging their heads, and saying, "Thou that 
destroyest the temple, and buildest it in 
three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son 
of God, come down from the cross." Like- 
wise also the chief priests mocking him, with 



146 HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 

the scribes and elders said, '* He saved oth- 
ers, himself he cannot save. He trusted in 
God; let him deliver him now if he will have 
him; for he said, ' I am the Son of God.' " 

And one of the malefactors railed on 
him, but the other said, '' Lord, remember 
me when thou comest into thy kingdom; 
and Jesus said unto him, "Verily I say 
unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in 
paradise." 

Then the four soldiers that had crucified 
him, took his garments and made four parts 
— to every soldier a part; except his coat, 
which was without seam, woven from the 
top throughout — for that they cast lots. 

And it was about the sixth hour that 
they crucified him, and there was darkness 
over all the earth until the ninth hour. 

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried 
with a loud voice, saying, *' My God, why 
hast thou forsaken me." And then he said, 
" I thirst." And one of them ran and took 
a sponge and filled it with vinegar, and put 
it on a reed and put it to his mouth. When 
Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, *' It 



HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 147 

is finished; Father, into thy hands I com- 
mend my spirit." And having said thus, he 
gave up the ghost. 

And, behold, the vail of the temple was 
rent in twain from the top to the bottom; 
and the earth did quake, and the rocks were 
rent. 

The Jews, therefore, because it was the 
preparation, that the bodies should not re- 
main upon the cross on the Sabbath day, 
besought Pilate that their legs might be 
broken, and they might be taken away. 
Then came the soldiers and brake the legs 
of the first, and of the other which was cru- 
cified with him. But when they came to 
Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, 
they brake not his legs; but one of the 
soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and 
forthwith came thereout blood and water. 

And after this, Joseph of Arimathea got 
leave from Pilate and took the body of Jesus. 
And there came also Nicodemus, and 
brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 
a hundred pounds weight. Then took they 
the body of Jesus and wound it in linen 



148 HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 

clothes with the spices, as the manner of the 
Jews is to bury. 

There was a garden in the place wh'ere 
he was crucified, and in the garden a new 
sepulcher, hewn out in the rock, wherein was 
never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus, 
for the sepulcher was nigh at hand. 

And they rolled a great stone to the 
door of the sepulcher and departed. 

Now, the next day the chief priests and 
pharisees came together unto Pilate and said, 
*' Sir, we remember that that deceiver said 
while he was yet alive, 'After three days I 
will arise again.' 

^'Command, therefore, that the sepulcher 
be made sure until the third day, lest his 
disciples come by night and steal him away, 
and say unto the people, * He is risen from 
the dead;' so the last error shall be worse 
than the first." Pilate said unto them, *' Ye 
have a watch, go your way, make it as sure 
as you can." 

So they went and made the sepulcher 
sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch. 

And as it began to dawn towards the 



HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 149 

first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene, 
and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. 

And behold there was a great earthquake ; 
for the angel of the Lord descended from 
heaven, and came and rolled back the stone 
from the door, and sat upon it. 

His countenance was like lightning, and 
his raiment white as snow. And the keepers 
did shake and become as dead men. 

And the angel said unto the women, 
*' Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus, 
which was crucified. He is not here; for he 
is risen, as he said. 

*'Come, see the place where the Lord lay. 

**And go quickly, and tell his disciples that 
he is risen from the dead, and behold, he goeth 
before you unto Galilee; there shall ye see 
see him; lo, I have told you." 

And they ran and told Peter and John, 
and these came running with Mary and went 
into the sepulcher, and seeth the linen 
clothes lie, and the napkin lying together in 
a place by itself. They did not yet know the 
scripture, that he must rise again from the 
dead. 



150 HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 

After Jesus had risen from the dead he 
appeared to his disciples several different 
times. Once when the eleven, and some 
others, were gathered together in Jerusalem, 
Jesus stood in the midst of them, and saith 
unto them, ' ' Peace be unto you." But they 
were terrified and afrighted, and supposed 
that they had seen a spirit. And he saith 
unto them, ** Why are ye troubled? And 
why do thoughts arise in your hearts ? Behold 
my hands and my feet, that it is I myself ; 
handle me, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh 
and bones, as ye see me have." And he 
showed them his hands and his feet. And 
while they yet believed not for joy, and won- 
dered, he said unto them, '' Have ye here any 
meat?" And they gave him a piece of a 
broiled fish and of a honey comb. And he 
took it and did eat before them. 

And then he talked with them, and op- 
ened their understanding that they might 
understand the scriptures, and said unto 
them, ''Thus it is written, and thus it be- 
hooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the 
dead the third day." 



HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 151 

*'And that repentance and remission of 
sins should be preached in his name among 
all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And 
ye are witnesses of these things." 

''And behold I send the promise of my 
Father upon you ; but tarry ye in the City of 
Jerusalem until ye be endowed with power 
from on high." 

And he led them out as far as the Beth- 
amy; and he lifted up his hands and blessed 
them. 

And it came to pass while he blessed 
them he was parted from them, and carried 
up into heaven. 

And they worshipped him, and returned 
to Jerusalem with great joy. 

Thus ended the most sad, the most 
tragic scenes ever enacted on earth. 

The Son of God, and true heir to the 
throne of David, rejected by his own people; 
and by the priests and rulers in the temple 
of his own Father was he persecuted, 
mocked, spat upon, and at last crucified be- 
tween two thieves. He was led as a lamb 
to the slaughter, but not by these whited 



152 HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 

sepulchers themselves. Their hypocritical 
sanctity would not even permit their entrance 
into the judgment hall, where their master 
was being tried for his life on their own accu- 
sations; but they urged and strengthened 
the hands of idolators, of the servants of the 
Devil, to commit the sacreligious deed. And 
when that humane heathen, Pilate, remon- 
strated with them, they cried out the more 
fiercely, "Crucify him, crucify him — on us 
and our children be his blood." 

Could madness go farther? Could fanat- 
icism, bigotry, intolerance be possibly more 
pliant tools for Satan ? 

And speedily came their punishment. 
The sword of God's vengeance was un- 
sheathed, their blood and the blood of their 
children was spilled like water; their land 
was left desolate, and as a hunted, perse- 
cuted race were they scattered amongst all 
the nations of the earth. 

Though they were the instruments of 
God, their blood guiltiness was none the 
less. 

And It is one of the deep mysteries of 



HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 153 

God that his church, his only church, his 
own people, chosen and adopted midst signs 
and wonders and great miracles, should be 
selected as such instrument; and thereafter 
should be, as it were, spewed from the 
mouth forever. 

For their eyes have ever been blinded, 
and their hearts hardened even unto this day. 

And though their crime was most heinous, 
the fruits thereof were glorious and im- 
mediate. 

For when the angel descended and 
loosed the seals, and rolled the stone from 
the mouth of the sepulcher, there was a 
great earthquake, and as Jesus walked forth, 
the first to rise from the dead, other graves 
were opened, others came up from death to 
life, — thousands of them, tens of thousands, 
and ascended with Christ to reign with him 
unto the second resurrection and final judg- 
ment. 

When Jesus came from the tomb he for- 
bade anyone to touch him until he had 
ascended to God. 

He returned again to earth, and when he 



154 HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 

ascended again and finally, it may have been 
to the throne of the Father, into the pro- 
found depths of illimitable space; or it may 
have been to some planet of his kingdom; 
to the Sun, the great, glorious central orb of 
our system of worlds; or It may have been 
to Venus, the star of the morning, the bright 
harbinger of day; or to Saturn, or to bril- 
liant Jupiter. Any one, or more, of these 
may have been purified and made ready for 
the mlllenium, where Christ and his saints 
could reign until time ceased, and the earth 
was also made suitable for the abode of 
God's elect. 

We cannot consider this unreasonable or 
improbable. Nothing is impossible with 
God. The idea of an earthly mlllenium is 
in the highest degree chimerical, and is with- 
out warrant of scripture. 

With the advent of Christ, the Devil and 
his angels were chained. They never dis- 
puted his authority over them, his power and 
right to cast them out of men. And when 
his disciples had received the Holy Ghost, 
and started on their mission, they went pos- 



HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 155 

sessed of the like power to cast out devils 
and heal all diseases. The control over evil 
spirits, by driving them from man, is the only 
chaining probably meant. Or if there were 
any other meaning, it is hidden from us, and 
always will be. 

It Is quite certain that since the beginning 
of the Christian era, Satan and his legions 
have been no less active, persistent, and suc- 
cessful in their efforts than they were prev- 
iously. 

Anti-Christs came, and with such show of 
genuineness, that, had it been possible, even 
the elect would have been deceived. All 
form of opposition, of distortion, of corrup- 
tion, were ever resorted to. 

During the lives of the apostles the 
churches that they had established were kept 
compartively pure; for the Holy Spirit was 
with them, as Jesus had promised. But 
when they had gone to their rest, when 
miracles had ceased, the churches gradually 
drew farther and farther away from the true 
teachings of Christ, until after a few centuries 
had passed, there was not in all the earth, 



156 HIS DEATH, RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. 

probably, even one that held the true doc- 
trine, that was anything more than a hollow 
mockery of the great original. Where was 
the church at Jerusalem? at Corinth? in 
Thessaly? at Rome? Did any of these teach 
the doctrines of their Head and King? Had 
they not drifted, or rather been led by Satan, 
into the vanities, vices and corruptions of the 
times? 

The great red dragon was speedily get- 
ting control, complete, thorough possession 
of the church of Christ as established by the 
apostles; and would hold it unto the end. 

But this also was a part of the plan of 
the Lord of all the earth. The good seed 
was sown, had taken root throughout the 
world, and the Spirit of the Lord would 
watch over his elect. The shepherd knows 
his sheep, they know his voice, and not one 
will be left out of the fold. 



THE ANTI-CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KING-DOM. 157 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE ANTI-CHRIST ; THE JUDGMENT) THE 
NEW KINGDOM. 

The last sacrifice had been offered; the 
paschal lamb, without blemish, as in the land 
of Egypt. Its blood had been drawn, as 
there, only the application was different. 
Christ gave them the bread, it was his body; 
he gave them the wine, it was his blood. 
Not a bone was broken; and the body was 
not kept till morning, but was hid in the sep- 
ulchre. Now, as then, death came not where 
the blood was; but then, it was the death 
averted for the time only; while now, if 
averted, it would be for all eternity. It was 
the final, all-sufficient sacrifice. There would 
be no further use for an earthly temple, so it 
was shaken and rocked to its foundation; no 
more use for a vail to hide its holy mysteries, 
so it w^as rent in twain from top to bottom. 
Now and henceforth the hearts of his elect 



158 THE ANTI-CHRISTj JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 

would be his temple, and the dwelling place 
of his Holy Spirit. 

In looking over the past, there are two 
numerals and their multiples, that attract at- 
tention and Incite wonder, by their frequent 
occurrence In all the Important events of the 
world's history. And they are the numbers 
three and forty. 

The creation of the world occupied twice 
three days, or periods; there were three 
persons In the garden of Eden; the flood 
lasted three times fifty days; the earth was 
peopled by the three sons of Noah; the 
Egyptian darkness lasted three days. And 
nearly all the incidents in the life, trial and 
death of the Saviour occupied three hours, 
three days, three years, or multiples of three. 

Even his final church will be the third. 
The Jewish was vacated and set aside; that 
the apostles founded and that was finally 
seated at Rome, was abandoned and dis- 
owned; the third and" last will be the eternal 
church, pure, undefiled, and unchangeable. 

We can well understand that three is 
typical of the trinity of the Godhead. But 



THE ANTI CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 159 

the numeral forty has also a symbolic mean- 
ing which is to us unknown. At the flood it 
rained forty days; Moses was in the mount 
forty days; the Jews in the wilderness for 
forty years; Christ in the wilderness forty 
days. Must we not feel quite certain that 
these repetitions of that numeral point to 
some definite subject, or to some existing 
objects? 

It may have reference to the number of 
the planets and their satelites, that consti- 
tuted the principalities and powers of the 
lost kingdom of Satan, and that will be 
the reclaimed kingdom of Christ, the new 
heaven and the new earth. 

And are we not justified in thinking 
that these types will be carried still farther? 
There was one period of two thousand years 
— fifty times forty — from Adam to Abra- 
ham; a second of two thousand from Abra- 
ham to the coming of the Son of God; a 
third of two thousand, to the end of all finite 
things; and being also a thousand years for 
each of the six days of creation. 

Prophecies, however clear in their gen- 



1(30 THE ANTl-CHRISTj JUDGMENT; NEW KlNGDOMr 

eral import, were never so as to details, nor 
to the determining of the times of their fulfil- 
ment. It was well understood that the Lord 
would send the house of Israel a king-, and 
that the temple would be destroyed: and so 
is it now known that the world will at last 
be consumed with fire, and time be no more. 
But the prophetic seven weeks, and sixty 
and two weeks; and the time, and tim.es and 
half times, convey no definite idea of the 
actually set time. 

But with typical numbers it is different; 
they are, from their very nature, determinate 
and invariable. 

In the twentieth century there will be 
such a culmination in the combining- of the 
mystic numbers three and forty, that we are 
impressed with the conviction that it will be 
the final one, and will witness the closing 
scenes of time. The three times fifty days 
of the fiood will have been again shown in 
three parts, in the fifty times forty years, 
making a total of one hundred and fifty 
times forty years, ending with the year 
2000 A. D. 



iC- 



THE ANTI- CHRIST; JUDGMENT^ NEW KINGDOM. 161 

The twentieth century, the closing one 
of the third, and no doubt final great epoch, 
begins with the year 1901. 

It may be that the end will come in its 
third typical forty, which begins with 1961. 

We feel also assured that the num- 
ber of the Christ, and the number of the 
anti-Christ, will enter into the final com- 
bination. 

AND 3 TIMES 666 ARE 1998. 

We can reflect, can consider, but not 
even the anofels of God know the time 
appointed for the end. 

The sowers of the good seed have gone 
throughout the world, and some has fallen 
in good ground and brought forth abun- 
dantly. The heralds of the Messiah have 
called forth from mountain and valley, from 
city and hamlet, the glad tidings of great 
joy, and the chosen of God have hearkened 
to the call. 

The words of the Savior come echoing 
down from century to century: ''Come unto 
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest, I am the way and 



162 THE ANTI-CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 

the life; he that believeth on me and doeth 
my works, shall never die. Come, drink of 
the water of life freely; for it is given with- 
out price, and floweth from the throne of thy 
God. Come to the marriage feast of the 
Lamb that was slain from the foundation of 
the world." 

In all nations, under all skies, are found 
the children of the kingdom ; few in number, 
perchance, and to the world unknown ; meek 
and lowly, persecuted and downtrodden; but 
God dwelleth in their hearts, and for them 
there is a mansion in their Father's house. 
And for them was the prayer of the Son of 
God when with his disciples, ' 'Father, I pray 
not for the world, but for these that thou 
has given me, and for those that shall be- 
lieve on me through their word." They are 
the wheat that shall be garnered at the 
last day. 

But the despoiler is abroad; the prince 
of all evil has never ceased his unrelenting 
warfare against the elect of God. 

Driving the followers of Christ from 
Jerusalem with persecution and violence, he 



THE ANTI-CHRISTj JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 163 

followed them elsewhere; and when not 
oppressing and killing, he sought to deceive 
and corrupt. 

And soon he succeeded, not in destroy- 
ing, but in getting under his control, the very 
church itself. It was but a few hundred 
years until his followers, now priests, bish- 
ops and popes, assumed all the rights, privi- 
leges and prerogatives of God himself. They 
claimed to hold the keys of heaven and hell; 
they could release souls from purgatory, 
a mitigated hell of their own invention, and 
send them up to heaven on angels' wings; 
they could enthrone and dethrone the kings 
of the earth; they could take their sinful fel- 
low men, and, declaring them saints, hold 
them up before their deluded followers as 
objects of v/orship. 

They even worshipped the mother of 
Jesus, and prayed unto her, rather than unto 
the Son. And they had idols of various 
kinds, images, relics of the apostles, of the 
cross, of their so-called saints; and in every 
way corrupted themselves. And they did 
these things at the command of their head, 



164 THE ANTI-CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 

the pope, who claimed to be infallible and in- 
capable of sin. And not only did they thus 
with themselves, but, instigated and moved 
by Satan, the very anti- Christ-in-chief, they 
persecuted the servants of God; they impris- 
oned them ; they tortured them with incon- 
ceivable malignity; they cursed them with all 
the anathemas of devils; they burned them ; 
they sawed them asunder; they flayed them 
alive; until the whole world was red with the 
blood of the saints, the chosen of God. 



And there was war in heaven; Michael 
and his angels fought against the dragon; 
and the great dragon was cast out, the old 
serpent, called the Devil, and Satan ; he was 
cast out into the earth and his angels were 
cast out with him. 

Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, for 
the Devil is come down unto you, having 
great wrath, because he knoweth he hath but 
a short time. 

And I saw a beast rise out of the sea 
(from the flood, where were drowned the 



THE ANTI-CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 165 

wicked offspring of Cain, and the other Sons 
of God), having seven heads and ten horns, 
and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his 
head the name of blasphemy. And I saw 
one of his heads as it were wounded unto 
death; and his deadly wound was healed. 
And they worshipped the dragon which gave 
power unto the beast. And there was given 
unto him a mouth speaking great things and 
blasphemies, and power was given unto him 
to continue forty and two months, (of such 
number was the generations from Adam 
unto to the coming of the Saviour; as also 
was the temple of God to be trodden under 
foot of the Gentiles). And all that dwell 
upon the earth shall worship this beast whose 
names are not written in the book of life. 

And I beheld another beast coming up 
out of the earth, and he had two horns, like a 
lamb, and he spake as a dragon (this is the 
anti-Christ that takes the church of the 
Lamb of God, and causeth the earth to wor- 
ship the first beast whose wound was healed). 

And he doth great wonders, so that he 
maketh fire to come down from heaven; and 



166 THE ANTI-CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 

he deceived by his miracles, and had the dwel- 
lers on earth make an image of the beast, 
and he gave life unto the image, so that it 
could both speak and cause those to be 
killed who would not worship it. And he 
caused all, great and small, to receive his 
mark in their right hand, or in their fore- 
heads; and this mark was 666. 

And I looked, and lo, a lamb stood on 
Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and 
forty-four thousand, having his father's name 
written in their foreheads. These were re- 
deemed from amongst men, being the first 
fruits unto God and to the Lamb. 

And I saw another angel in the midst 
of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to 
preach unto them that dwell on the earth. 

And there followed another angel, saying, 
Babylon is fallen, is fallen. 

And a third angel followed, saying with 
a loud voice. If any man worship the beast 
and his image, and receive his mark in his 
forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink 
of the wine of the wrath of God, and shall 
be tormented with fire and brimstone, and 



THE ANTI-CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 167 

the smoke of their torment ascendeth up 
forever and ever. 

An angel said unto me, Come hither; I 
will show unto thee the judgment of the 
great whore that setteth upon many waters. 

And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet col- 
ored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having 
seven heads and ten horns. And the woman 
was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and 
decked with gold and precious stones. And 
upon her forehead was a name written: 
MYSTERY. BABYLON THE GREAT. 
THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND 
ABOMLNATIONS OF THE EARTH.' 
And I saw the woman drunken with the 
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the 
martyrs of Jesus. 

And the angel said, I will tell thee the 
mystery of the woman, and of the beast that 
carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and 
the ten horns. The beast that was, and is 
not, and yet is, shall ascend out of the bot- 
tomless pit. The seven heads are seven 
mountains, on which the woman sitteth ; and 
the ten horns are ten kinors,who shall receive 



1G8 THE ANTI -CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 

power one hour with the beast; and the 
waters where the whore sitteth are peoples 
and multitudes, and nations and tongues. 

And the ten horns which thou sawest upon 
the beast, these shall hate the whore, and 
shall make her desolate and naked, and shall 
eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For 
God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, 
and to agree, and give their kingdom unto 
the beast until the words of God shall be 
fulfilled. 

And I saw another angel, and he cried 
with a loud voice, Babylon, the great, is fal- 
len, and is become the habitation of devils, 
and the hold of every foul spirit. And 
another voice cried. Come out of her, my 
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins; 
for her sins have reached unto heaven, and 
she shall be utterly burned with fire; for by 
her sorceries were all nations deceived; and 
in her was found the blood of prophets, and 
of saints, and of all that were slain upon the 
earth. 

And the Lord God hath judged the 
great whore, which did corrupt the earth, 



THE ANTI-CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 169 

and hath avenged the blood of his servants 
at her hand. 

And her smoke rose up forever and ever. 

And I saw heaven opened, and behold, 
a white horse, and he that sat upon him was 
called Faithful and True. His eyes were a 
flame of fire, and on his head were many 
crowns, and he had a name written that no 
man knew but himself. And he was clothed 
with a vesture dipped in blood; and on his 
vesture and on his thigh a name written, 
King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. 

And the armies which were in heaven 
followed him upon white horses, clothed in 
fine linen, white and clean. 

And I saw an angel standing in the sun, 
and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all 
the fowls that fly. Come unto the supper of 
the great God, that ye may eat the flesh of 
kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh 
of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and 
of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all 
men, both free and bond, both small and 
great. 

And I saw the beast, and the kings of 



170 THE ANTI-CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 

the earth, and their armies gathered together 
to make war against him that sat on the 
horse, and against his army. 

And the beast was taken, and with him 
the false prophet that wrought miracles that 
deceived those who received the mark of the 
beast, and that worshipped his image. These 
both were cast alive into a lake of fire burn- 
ing with brimstone. And the remnant were 
slain with the sword of him that sat upon 
the horse, and all the fowls were filled with 
their flesh- 

And the Devil was cast into the lake of 
fire where the beast and false prophet are, 
and shall be tormented day and night forever. 

And I saw a great white throne and him 
that sat on it, from whose face the earth and 
the heaven fled away; and there was found 
no place for them. 

And I saw the dead, small and great, 
stand before God; and the books were 
opened; and another book was opened, the 
book of life; and the dead were judged out 
of those things which were written in the 
books, according to their works. 



THE ANTI-CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 171 

And death and hell were cast into the 
lake of fire. And whoever was not found 
written in the book of life was cast into the 
lake of fire. This is the second death. 

And I saw a new heaven and a new 
earth; for the first heaven and the first earth 
were passed away ; and there was no more sea. 

And I heard a great voice out of heaven 
saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is 
with men, and he will dwell with them, and 
they shall be his people, and God himself 
shall be with them, and be their God. And 
there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, 
nor crying, nor any more pain; for the 
former things are passed away. 

Behold, I make all things new. 

And the angel carried me away in the 
spirit to a great and high mountain, and 
showed me that great city, the holy Jerus- 
alem, descending out of heaven from God, 
having the glory of God, and her light was 
like unto a stone most precious, clear as 
crystal. And I saw no temple therein, for 
the Lord God almighty and the Lamb are 
the temple of it. And the city had no need 



172 THE ANTI-CHRIST; JUDGMENT; NEW KINGDOM. 

of the sun, for the glory of God did Hghten 
it, and the Lamb is the light thereof; and 
his servants shall serve him, and they shall 
see his face; and his name shall be in their 
foreheads, and they shall reign forever. 

And he said unto me, These sayings 
are faithful and true. Behold, I come 
quickly. I am Alpha and Omega, the be- 
ginning and the end, the first and the last. 

Blessed are they that do his command- 
ments, that they may have right to the tree 
of life, and may enter in through the gates 
into the city. 



Thus will be vindicated the power and 
the majesty of the God of the universe. 

Thus will he finally and forever conquer 
Satan and his legions of fallen angels, and 
chain them in the lake of fire and brimstone 
for all eternity. 

Thus will he consume with fire and pur- 
ify from corruption, the old earth and the 
old heaven, and resurrect them into a new, 
pure, and perfect abode for the redeemed of 



THE anti-christ; judgment; new kingdom. 173 

the earth; those whom he created, built up, 
buried and resurrected again according to 
his own will. 

And the ruler thereof will not be, as be- 
fore, an angel, a finite being who fell through 
pride; but he will be his own beloved Son, 
the meek and lowly one of earth, who, as 
King and Lord, infinite as the Father in all 
his attributes, will reign with his saints for- 
ever and ever. 



THE END. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
treatment Date: IVlay 2005 

PreservationTechnologles 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)77q-?ii • 



